Stages of Sleep and How They Affect Our Sleep Cycle

Date: 2010-03-11 16:41:04

By Dominic Lin

Getting a good night's sleep is one of the best things we can do for our body. It affects how we think and act in the waking hours. Throughout our sleep there are a few different stages which we go through and being able to wake up feeling well and rested often has a lot to do with getting through all of the necessary sleep stages.

The Different Stages of Sleep

There are a few stages of sleep which comprise our sleep cycle. The first is the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) stage which has four mini-stages within it that consists of transition from waking to sleeping, intermediate sleep, beginning of deep sleep and the deepest sleep. This is when the body starts the initial relaxation phase and everything starts to slow down. The next stage of sleep in the sleep cycle is the rapid eye movement (REM) stage. During the REM stage of sleep an individual will be in a dreaming state of sleep and experience effects such as increased brain activity, increased flow of blood to the brain and increased respiration. The entire combination of both NREM and REM sleep occurs every 90 minutes and occurs many times a night, depending on how long you sleep each night.

How the Stages Affect Our Sleep Cycle

Understanding the different stages of sleep is very important as individuals need to achieve both NREM and REM sleep in order to get a good sleep every night and wake up feeling rested. If one mainly experiences NREM sleep and not enough time in deep REM sleep portion, the results are a tired and possibly irritable person in the morning.

How You Can Achieve Proper Sleep

One of the best ways to achieve proper sleep is to be comfortable and this can be acquired simply by sleeping on a good mattress every night, such as a memory foam mattress. A foam memory mattress will cradle and support your body while you sleep and provide comfort overall. Obtaining a memory mattress to enhance your sleeping is one of the best things that you can do in order to get a good night's sleep, both of the NREM and REM variety. A memory foam mattress is affordable, comfortable and the perfect promoter of good sleep.


Author

Natural Form provides top quality hospital grade self adjusting beds and memory foam mattress products. For more information about memory mattress products, visit http://www.naturalform.com or call 1-888-524-0985.Distributed by ContentCrooner.com. This articles came from MoreArticles.net.


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