If you’ve ever used a fitness tracker to understand your sleep performance, you’ll notice that you experience different sleep stages throughout the night. At some points, you’ll be in a very deep sleep. At other points, you’ll be sleeping lightly and even wake up without realising it.
As per Betway Insider, there are three different stages of sleep: light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. In a recent study on achieving a quality night’s sleep, Betway noted that each stage plays a critical role in achieving a healthy lifestyle. Below, we’ll take a look at light sleep and deep sleep in more detail to help you get a better understanding.
Light sleep is shallow and can be interrupted with ease. When you’re sleeping lightly, you’re usually aware of what’s happening around you, and you can still hear. Of course, it doesn’t feel like it, but your brain has gone to sleep, it’s just in a very light sleeping state.
If you’ve only had a light sleep, you’ll probably wake up feeling tired and like you’ve not even slept at all.
However, when you have a healthy night’s rest, your light sleep will then transition into a deep sleep. You should only really be in a light sleep mode when your body begins relaxing, and you start drifting off into a deeper sleep.
Deep sleep is when your body and mind are fully switched off. Your blood pressure drops, your muscles fully relax, and your breathing slows down. You’re much less likely to be woken up while in a deep sleep.
The deep sleep stage is critical because now that your brain is offline, your body can start the repair and rejuvenation process. Growth hormones are secreted, repairing and rebuilding your tissues, muscles, and bones while strengthening your immune system.
Deep sleep will restore your energy levels too. If you’ve had a good night’s rest with plenty of deep sleep, you shouldn’t wake up feeling tired.
What about REM sleep? REM sleep is more about your brain rather than your body. Your brain is more active while your body is basically paralysed. REM sleep basically refers to your rapid eye movements under your eyelids. We tend to do most of our dreaming while we’re in this state.
As we get older, we don’t have as much REM sleep – typically only around two hours a night! To put this into perspective, babies can spend around eight of their 16 hours of sleep in REM sleep.
Getting a restful night’s sleep
So there you have it: everything you need to know about the various sleep stages and the differences between light and deep sleep.
Ultimately, it’s important to make sure you get a sufficient amount of deep and REM sleep throughout the night. One of the ways you can do this is by partaking in relaxing activities before you go to bed, such as meditation, putting on a face mask, or watching a comedy show. This will help both your mind and body to relax so you can enjoy a better night’s rest.
