Your laptop is switched on since yesterday! You have a zoom call in 10 minutes, must prepare a slide deck and the research work has ensured some 30 tabs open all at once. Suddenly the laptop starts behaving funny. Speakers are not working, windows are frozen and the PowerPoint refuses to give a damn. What do you do?
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Restart! Or essentially, give it a break, shut it down and restore it.
Same to same – Sleep.
Sleep is a natural and essential phenomenon to restore your body and mind. A process where the mind slips from conscious to unconscious and does all the repair work. It sends signals and necessary supplies to all other organs to make a completely revamped and a new you.
Stages of a sleep cycle
A sleep cycle is like swimming; a dive from the beaches of the conscious, floating on the serene waters and into the deep ocean of the unconscious, crossing the waves of NREM to REM each time with increased vigor and creative strokes.
Simply put, NREM sleep is the Non-Rapid Eye Movement sleep where your eyelids are closed and the eyeballs don’t move and REM sleep has Rapid Eye Movements where your eyelids are still closed but with rapid eye movements. These are the stages of brain waves having a different intensity each time you cross them throughout your hours of sleep.
Stage 1 (Light sleep) – It all starts when you doze off, literally! Imagine that you have just dived into the blue waters. Though the body isn’t relaxed fully and the mind is still close to consciousness. Your body experiences twitches or short movements.
Stage 2 (Intermediate) – and then your muscles relax, body temperature drops, eye movements stop. You experience the quietness of the still water and begin to float, allowing the body to attain calmness and focus on the deeper zones of the mind.
Stage 3 (Deep) – you go into a deep sleep, diving into the unconscious. Fathoming the ocean and ready to experience the new world underwater. The body is completely relaxed allowing recovery and growth. The mind is at peace and sharpening itself for better memory retention and insightful thinking.
REM sleep (Rapid Eye movement) – and then suddenly you experience the waves. The brain activities pick up. Your eyes start moving rapidly behind closed eyelids, all the voluntary muscles are paralyzed except the eye muscles for eye movements, diaphragm muscles for breathing, and middle ear muscles to keep the noise out. You dream. Your brain is preparing to learn better, seeing scenarios, being creative in finding solutions, and fuelling it to be more powerful.
The cycle will keep repeating approximately every 1.5 to 2 hours, but the time and structure of NREM to REM will keep changing in every cycle. This very personal and individual architecture of sleep will determine how you wake up the next day.
Sleep like a baby
For a fresh beautiful morning, it’s imperative to have the best of Stage 3 and REM sleep. That’s where the mind and body are preparing themselves for the next-level challenge. The famous saying ‘Sleep like a baby’ has actually been medically proven. It is observed that across all age groups, babies have the best REM sleep. As we grow older and take on societal responsibilities, it is seen that not only the REM but also the non-REM sleep gets affected. We tend to push away the habit of peaceful sleeping, which has also led to the infamous term Sleep deprivation
So, when someone complains of waking up tired is actually when they haven’t achieved the deep stages of sleep optimally. Most experts treating patients for lack of sleep or Insomnia are only trying to make one push through Stage 1 sleep and Stage 2 sleep. But the most important stages for a restorative fulfilling sleep are meant to be experienced by individual choice. It is how you allow peace to your mind and to your body in conscious scenarios that affect how deeply you allow it in the unconscious.
Sleep better, wake up better!
The science of sleep is simple. The complication however is the stimuli. The amount of work and unrealistic deadlines that make you trade your sleep, the health illnesses and the associated pain that causes the lack of sleep, and the stress and worries that affect your mental health leading to anxiety and depression, thus pushing a peaceful sleep further away.
Your reactions to these stimuli on a daily conscious basis will determine how well you will doze off tonight and ensure a bright and beautiful morning tomorrow.
PS: Check our website for more articles and blogs on how to make conscious decisions to allow peace to mind and body for a night of better sleep.