Each night when you go to sleep, your body doesn’t simply shut down and stay dormant. Instead, your rest occurs in a progression of four important stages that allow your brain and body to recover and grow. When your body fails to get enough of these necessary steps, it can cause a variety of problems during the waking hours. Here are the four sleep stages, why they’re so important, and how having an untreated sleep disorder like sleep apnea can hurt them.
Stage 1 (N1)
This is the lightest stage of rest. It occurs when you first fall asleep and usually lasts around seven minutes. During this period, your body has not fully relaxed, and it is still fairly easy to wake up; however, if uninterrupted you can quickly move on to stage 2.
Stage 2 (N2)
During this stage, your body will begin to relax more deeply. Your temperature will drop, your muscles will relax, and your heart rate and breathing will slow down. Your brain will experience slight bursts of activity that help prevent external stimuli from waking you up. This can last between 10 and 25 minutes.
Stage 3 (N3 or Deep Sleep)
Stage three is the deepest and most restorative sleep cycle, which allows your body to recover and grow. During this stage, it is harder to wake up. Your muscle tone, pulse, and breathing all decrease and your brain creates delta waves. Stage three is very important to restorative sleep and allows your body to recover and grow, increasing your immune system. Some studies have even suggested that deep sleep encourages insightful thinking.
The majority of time spent in deep sleep occurs during the first half of the night. During early sleep cycles these stages last about 20 to 40 minutes. As you continue to sleep, they decrease and more of your time is spent in REM sleep.
Stage 4 (REM Sleep)
REM sleep is where most of your dreams occur. Your brain activity increases during this stage, and your body becomes temporarily paralyzed, with the exception of your eyes and your breathing muscles.
REM sleep is vital to cognitive function including memory. Under ideal conditions, your body will not enter REM sleep until you’ve been asleep for around 90 minutes. As the night progresses, these stages will get longer, especially during the second half of the evening. Your initial REM stage might only last a few minutes but later could continue for around an hour and make up about 25 percent of sleep in adults.
The Dangers of OSA to Your Sleep Cycles
In order to fully rest and restore your body, you need to complete all four of the sleep cycles. Unfortunately, however, if you have a sleep disorder such as OSA or CSA, you may not get enough total sleep to accumulate the necessary time in each stage. This can take a negative toll on your mental and physical health, causing issues with your mood, memory, cognitive abilities, and your body’s opportunity to heal and restore itself.
Treating OSA
Remember, it is extremely important to experience all the sleep cycles to get a complete night’s rest. Otherwise, you can experience a variety of negative side-effects including cognitive, mental health, and medical conditions such as high blood pressure and other cardiovascular issues. Thus, it is important to speak to a sleep specialist about your treatment options. With many solutions available, your dental sleep medicine doctor can help you get the rest you deserve so your body can perform properly around the clock.
About Dr. Rodgers
Dr. Jeff Rodgers is a board-certified expert in sleep and has been specialized in dental sleep medicine in private practice for over 20 years. He earned his BS in biology from Lee University and his dental degree at the University of Alabama School of Dentistry. He is a proud Diplomate the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine (ABDSM) and the American Sleep and Breathing Academy (ASBA). To schedule an appointment at Sleep Better Georgia: Dental Sleep Medicine for sleep apnea treatment, visit our website or call us today at 770-394-4310.