What Are Sleep Cycles? - Everything You Need To Know!

While you are sleeping, you go through a number of 90-minute sleep cycles. During in each cycle, you go through four sleep stages.

During stage one, also known as light sleep, you are sleeping, well, lightly. This stage lasts for between one and seven minutes. When you are in light sleep, your breathing and heartbeat start to slow down, but it is very easy to wake up if you hear a sound.

Now, during stage two, you are sleeping a little more deeply. In this stage, called intermediate sleep, your breathing and heartbeat continue to slow. It is a little harder to wake up during this stage, but you will wake feeling refreshed.

When you reach stage three, deep sleep or slow-wave sleep, you are sleeping much more deeply. Your breathing and heartbeat are very slow, but your muscles and bones grow and heal. This is a rejuvenating stage of sleep.

Finally, you get to stage four, REM sleep. During REM sleep, your heart rate and breathing increase and become irregular. Your eyes start to move quickly behind your eyelids, and your most vivid dreaming occurs.

It is good to consider this information if you like to take a nap. You don’t want to wake up during a later stage (like three or four) because you will feel very groggy. It is better to nap for around 20 minutes so that you are only in stage two or nap for a full 90 minutes so that you have gone through the full cycle.

You are watching Marten Carlson, staff writer and reviewer at Mattress Clarity.

If you want more information about sleep stages and sleep cycles, you can check out our full written guide here: https://www.mattressclarity.com/blog/sleep-cycle/

If you have more questions, leave a comment below!

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