REM Sleep and the 4 Stages of Sleep

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We have heard many times that a good night’s sleep is important but a lot of people often ignore this until they start feeling the effects of insufficient sleep.

If you are young, you have a lot of energy to run around all day and the negative impact of insufficient sleep will not be felt much. However, when you grow old, it’s an entirely different story.   

Aging has a lot of effects on the body and one of them is interrupted sleep and the decrease of the quality of sleep. As we age we tend to tend to not complete the stages of sleep and we achieve less time in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and, which is not good.

REM sleep is very important for mental health. An experiment found that where test subjects were deprived of REM sleep, although they still got enough sleep, began to exhibit symptoms of mental illness.

It got to the point where the subjects even started hallucinating. The symptoms started disappearing after subjects were allowed to get enough REM sleep.

 

Aside from REM sleep, there are still 4 other stages of sleep and they are:

Stage 1woman having a good sleep

This is the preparation of the body for sleep when we still have awareness of our surroundings.

Theta waves are seen during this stage and from this stage, it is very easy to be awakened.

Stage 2

This low voltage sleep has brief bursts of activity known as sleep spindles.

Stage 3

This is a brief period of true sleep, lasting 15 minutes and during this stage half of the EEG shows the large voltage of delta waves.

Stage 4

This is the stage where the deepest sleep is experienced. This is when most repair work of the body is done with the help of maximum HGH secretion.

If we have at least 8 hours of sleep per night, we will spend 200,00 hours in the sleep stage by the time we reach 70 years old. Somebody once said that if we could stay awake for an hour more, we would have an extra 25,000 hours of awake time, about 3 years.

woman with arms outstreched

This could mean more books read, more shows watched or just more time enjoyed whether alone or with family and friends. However, this could also mean diminished levels of HGH.

As mentioned, when sleep is broken, our bodies will secrete lower levels of HGH. Poor sleep causes lower levels of HGH and a researcher named Dr. Eve Van Cauter from the University of Chicago, believes that if people were able to restore their capacity of deep sleep as they age, the aging process can be reversed.

She also feels that insomnia in older people is responsible for premature aging.

There are various other problems associated with insufficient sleep and some of them are traffic accidents and deaths attributed to lack of sleep.

Some of the common problems are insomnia, teeth grinding, sleep apnea, snoring and emotional problems. If sleep problems become serious, it is important to seek medical attention.

One of the few things you can do in order to have better sleep is to avoid that cup of coffee, that bar of chocolate or that bottle of soft drinks.

One effective method to restore normal sleep patterns is through human growth hormone (HGH). Inadequate sleep impacts HGH production in the body, so replenishing these levels can help disrupt the cycle.