SLEEP CYCLES EXPLAINED

BY OLIVER FISHER

AS UNI STUDENTS we all know there’s a universal priority ranking of going out > sleeping > lectures.

Although sleeping has the middle ranking, it still tends to be sacrificed for the last-minute cram sessions, making us all walk around like zombies. We often justify this lifestyle by saying we’re young and our bodies can handle it, but how true is that?

The way we sleep can be split into two separate cycles, the REM cycle and the non-REM cycle. REM stands for random eye movement; this is where your eyes move randomly while you’re asleep but they do not transmit any visual information to the brain. This is typically the point at which dreams occur. We start in the Non-REM stage and then change to the REM stage for a short amount of timebefore the cycle starts again.

The Non-REM cycle starts in a phase where you can easily be woken up, this is relatively short, only lasting 5-10 minutes. After this, your heart rate starts to slow down and your body temperature drops.

This is a deeper sleep but you can still be easily woken up, lasting for about 15-25 minutes. The final phase is a deep sleep in which it’s harder for you to wake up. If you were woken up during this phase you’d be disorientated for a while. In this phase the body undergoes maintenance.

You will have several REM cycles throughout the night. The first period generally lasts around ten minutes and with each further phase the time increases, with it sometimes lasting for an hour. REM is important for development as it stimulates areas of the brain related to learning and some research shows it is linked to protein production.

The idea that we need less sleep when we’re young is some-

In the short term, it can cause “increased stress responsivity; somatic problems; reduced quality of life (QoL); emotional distress; mood disorders and other mental health problems; cognition, memory, and performance deficits; and behaviour problems in otherwise healthy individuals. Long-term consequences can include “hypertension, dyslipidaemia, CVD, weight-related issues, metabolic syndrome, and T2DM.” what true. Everyone needs a set amount of deep sleep to function healthily. As we get older, we find it much harder to enter deep sleep and often have longer periods of light sleep.

So how bad is it if we don’t get the proper amount of sleep?

There are both short-term and long-term consequences of a reason why you always feel more tired than you may think. Another factor that affects your sleep is alcohol. Alcohol can suppress the REM cycle in your sleep. During the first couple of cycles the non-REM deep sleep should be dominant and in the later cycles REM sleep is meant to be dominant.

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The sedative nature of alcohol can cause you to fall into deep sleep quicker. This causes less REM sleep and more deep sleep leading to a lower quality of sleep, including shorter periods of sleep with more disruptions.