![]() ![]() Yuen said this stage mostly takes place in the first part of the night. About 15-20% of the night is spent in deep sleep. This stage helps to restore the body and boosts the immune system, creativity, and memory. It’s hard to wake up from this stage and when you do, you’re likely to feel pretty groggy. Muscle tone, heart rate, and breathing rate all decrease. The third stage of sleep is called “deep sleep” or “slow wave” sleep. This stage lasts between 10-25 minutes of each cycle, but it accounts for about half of the total sleep time. Yuen explained that stage two is characterized by the appearance of sleep spindles and K complexes on electroencephalogram, which have a lot to do with how we encode and store information that we learn during the day. “This stage is necessary for memory formation and consolidation.”ĭr. “Light sleep has an important role,” said Dr. This stage is referred to as “light sleep,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not needed. Stage 2: Light SleepĪs you move into stage two, your breathing and heart rate slow down. This is also when “hypnic jerks” happen, those involuntary contractions of muscles that sometimes feel like you’re falling. It makes up about 5-10% of total sleep time.ĭuring this stage, both brain and body activity slow down, but it’s easy to wake up. Yuen said this stage usually only lasts a few minutes, but most people go through it several times each night. The first stage of sleep happens as you close your eyes and move from being awake to sleeping. Let’s take a look at each of the four stages. The sleep stages and cycle change throughout the night. There are three other stages of non-REM sleep: stage one, when you feel drowsy and start falling asleep stage two, often referred to as light sleep and stage three, called deep sleep.Įach stage is important, but they aren’t set in stone. You may have heard of rapid eye movement (REM), which takes up about 20-25% of each night, but that’s only one stage. Kin Yuen, a sleep medicine specialist at the University of California San Francisco, to learn more. What happens during those stages, and do we really need them all? We spoke with Dr. You go through several sleep cycles each night. These stages combine to form a sleep cycle, but it doesn’t end there. Each night as you drift off to sleep, your brain begins going through a series of sleep stages. ![]()
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