Good Sleep vs. Bad Sleep

Sometimes people think they are getting enough sleep because they go to bed at a certain time and wake up eight hours later. This is not always the case. As you are probably well aware, the quality of sleep you get can change from night to night. It is important to take note of what can cause these changes. Firstly we must familiarize ourselves with what our body does during sleep. When we fall asleep we enter stage 1 NREM (non rapid eye movement) sleep. This is when you are crossing the border of being awake and being asleep. Then we proceed deeper and deeper into sleep until we reach stage 4 NREM sleep. This is when you are so deep in sleep that it usually takes firm physical contact to wake you and when you do wake up out of stage 4 NREM sleep you are often times confused and disoriented. After stage 4 sleep we enter REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, arguably the most important stage of sleep. This is when your brain starts showing similar amounts of activity compared to when you are awake and your muscles undergo temporary paralysis. It is also when you dream. This progression through the 4 stages of NREM sleep and then subsequently REM sleep is known as the sleep cycle and it repeats itself multiple times during the night. Humans are supposed to be in REM sleep about 25% of the time they are asleep, but this is not always the case. Often times we toss and turn and wake up briefly in the middle of the night. And when we go back to sleep we start over at stage 1 NREM sleep. As a result we tend to lose out on REM sleep and this is usually when we experience a loss in quality during sleep. Alcohol consumption before bed and sleeping with the lights on can also diminish the amount of REM sleep you get. Keep these things in mind the next time you wake up feeling like you didn’t sleep at all.