How the Stages of Sleep Affect Your Health

Getting a good night’s sleep is important for your health. This is no old wives tale any more but proved fact, courtesy of scientific research. It is now widely believed by the scientific community that a disturbance in your sleep can result in lower performance levels the next day. Let us examine how they reached this conclusion. There are broadly two theories about why we need to sleep. The first is known as the Evolution Theory and the second one is called the Restoration Theory.

Sleep Theories

The evolution theory suggests that the period of sleep at night helps us to conserve energy which helped in enhancing survival strategies.  The larger the animal the slower its metabolic rate tends to be. Humans can slow down their metabolic rate even more when they sleep at night. The Evolution theory also suggests that to being asleep at night we are less likely to be hurt during the dark hours when it may have made a difference to our very survival in the prehistoric days.

As per the restoration theory, the nightly sleep period is useful for the body’s self healing abilities. While we are asleep the body tends to repair any damage that may have occurred to the body during the day. This has also been supported by scientific evidence which shows that a hurt will heal faster when the person gets a good night’s sleep.  Results of research conducted by Ian Oswald in 1966 in England shows that lack of sleep can significantly affect the health of a person.

What are the different stages of sleep?

While the purpose of sleep can still be debated in many myriad ways, the researchers do agree that the stages of sleep are fairly consistent. The primary problem with measuring sleep for the researchers was what should be measured? As technology advanced and brain waves were finally measured in different terms, it became easier to measure sleep patterns as well.  Essentially these brain waves are composed four types of brain waves, referred to as, alpha, beta delta, and theta. These four brain waves make up the Electroencephalogram (EEG). There are five distinctive stages of sleep that a person is expected to go through at night. These are distinguished by the type of electric activity seen in the brain during these stages. Beta waves are observed when a person is awake.

The first stage is a very light sleep in which Alpha and Theta brain waves are seen. Stage two sees the emergence of Sleep Spindles, which are essentially rapid, rhythmic activity measured on the graph. In stage three Delta waves emerge taking the person from light to deep sleep. Stage four is deep sleep period with Delta waves dominant. In stage five REM or Rapid Eye Movement accompanied by frenzied brain activity is seen. This is the stage of dreams. It is not necessary that each individual will follow all five stages of sleep in the give order, however this is what has been observed on average by the researchers and is taken as a standard description of the different stages of sleep.

What does sleep deprivation do to you?

Now that we know what the stages of sleep are let us consider what happens if we are deprived of these stages of sleep. If a person is woken up before he can transition from stage one to stage two, he wakes up feeling irritated, tired and frustrated. This is because to feel fresh you need to complete your deep sleep in stage four. It was also found by researchers that REM sleep was needed in order to refresh the brain processes while Non REM or NREM sleep was needed to replenish the tiredness felt by the physical body. Babies were found to spend more time in REM sleep because they have greater need of brain development than body rest.

If a person was not allowed to complete his stage four sleep he was likely to be unable to do complicated cognitive tasks, while a person who was not allowed to complete his fifth stage was unable to peak at physical performance tests. This means that while your deep sleep to refresh yourself is important, it is equally important to have passed that stage and moved on to having dreams for a really good night’s rest. If you are unable to get a full night’s rest for a long period of time, you do not need to sleep for an equal number of nights peacefully to get over the ill effects. You can catch up on lost sleep in a relatively less time than the number of hours you have been deprived of sleep.

Preventing sleep deprivation

In order to function well you need to be able to sleep at night and complete all five stages. To do so you need to ensure that you are not disturbed while you lie in a comfortable bed and are habituated to sleeping at a certain time each night. Try and stick to a routine where by your body prepares itself for a restful night’s sleep as a matter of habit. Involve a few customs such as listening to soft music and unwinding with stretches to relax your body, in your night time routine.

These activities will signal to the brain that your body is ready to rest and be refreshed by sleep. It may help to follow this bed time routine, especially if you travel a lot and tend to sleep in a lot of different hotel beds. That way even though you are not in your own home and bed, the brain registers that you are still in a comfortable and secure area and can get a good night’s sleep. The alternative of being sleep deprived the whole of the next day is definitely not an attractive one.

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