Sleep Cycles

I have found that learning about the different cycles of sleep it has helped me to understand my symptoms of sleep apnea and to identify when I have or have not been having a good nights sleep. Unfortunately, I believe, that while a CPAP is essential to maintaining your health if you have OSA, it is like so many other conditions that you might have to take medications for - you feel better, but it is not a cure, just management of the disease. There are 5 stages if sleep: Stage 1 is about 5-10% of our sleep time and Stage 2 is about 30-50% of our sleep time. These are the lighter stages of sleep. Stage 3 into 4 is what is considered our deep sleep. it accounts for 20-40% of our sleep time. It is also called our slow wave sleep. There is no rapid eye movement, our heart rate, breathing and blood pressure all decrease. Many experts feel this is the time our body takes to restore itself physically. The last and final stage of sleep is REM sleep or Rapid Eye Movement sleep. It accounts for 20-25% of our sleep time. During this time our brain activity is very intense. Dreams are experienced in REM sleep. Experts are not sure why our brain activity is so intense, but it may the way our body restores our mind or psyche - it's like cleaning out all the bad garbage we don't need. I think of some of the dreams I have had where I finally got to be friends with someone who I had wronged or say goodbye to someone who is no longer living.... I DO believe dreams help us stay sane! The odd thing about REM is even though our brain is intensely active, our bodies are paralyzed. If you have ever been suddenly awakeed from this sleep cycle from a loud sound, like a police siren, you may have noticed that your body feels like a dead weight! You have been like paralyzed and it is hard to get your body to respond quickly to the whatever it was that awakened you! 1 sleep cycles of all 5 stages takes about 90 minutes. So there are about 4-6 cycles per night. As it gets towards morning, we have longer periods of REM than when we first laid down to sleep at night. You also come out of REM quicker as the am hours approach. Since dreaming takes place in REM and REM is longer towards morning, you will sometimes remember your dreams you had right before waking for the day!