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I have never been much of a napper… until I came to college. The constant running around to classes, meetings, tutoring, getting food, doing laundry, and finding time for the gym is a lot harder when your own your own without your parents help and I think it makes students very tired and much more in need of sleep than at home where half of the tasks are already done for us.

Most people are able to take a nap for thirty minutes and be up for the rest of the day… other people (like me) can nap for up to four hours and wake up STILL TIRED. Since I have began napping on a regular basis it got me wondering why this could happen. As I looked into the topic online I found information that there are different stages of sleep doing this to us. In this article it states the different stages: stage one, stage two, stage three, and REM sleep. The longer you sleep the deeper you get in the stages. As we begin to try and fall asleep we are in stage one, this stage lasts for about one to ten minutes depending on hour tired we are and how much we need sleep at that time. This is where you are technically sleeping but can easily wake up to being fully awake again. Within this stage is where your breathing begins to slow, your eyelids are shut but may open a bit, your eyeballs can roll around, and the feeling we receive every so often when we jump and it wakes us because we feel as if we are falling (fun fact: this usually happens mostly to people with bad sleep patterns.) The next stage is stage 2 following the first stage. This is where you begin to feel completely asleep leading to a deep sleep in the next stage. This occurs for around twenty minutes depending on the the person. It can be difficult to wake up during this, definitely not as easy as stage one. Most functions in your body start to slow down and we spend most of our time in this “light sleep” stage. Next comes stage three, which begins approximately thirty five- forty five minutes after initially passing out. If you are in this stage of sleep you usually will not wake up for any minor disturbances because you are so deeply sleeping. This is when you feel uncomfortable or confused if you wake up during this stage. Often times if you set an alarm early for work or school for example, you may wake up feeling as if you don’t know what day it is or why you are waking up. The final stage is called REM sleep, which is the point in our sleep where we dream most, about ninety minutes after being passed out. it stands for “Rapid Eye Movement” and lasts for about ten plus minutes. Like the name, our eyes move rapidly for this period of time and our functions that slowed down begin to pick up again.

Throughout these stages of sleep our brain waves flow differently as we get deeper into sleep and fall into light sleeps during the night. Each of the four stages are different depending on the person and the times can range immensely depending on how tired and how much sleep is needed every night.

One thought on “Sleep Cycle

  1. John Carney

    This blog is very interesting to me because I’m a huge fan of sleep and need to nap at least once everyday. I never knew anything about the stages but i have always found it extremely hard to get up if i take a nap thats longer than 30 minutes. Most people usually like taking 20-30 minute “power” naps to revive them with more energy for the rest of the day but i usually end up sleeping for 2-3 hours during my naps. Its extremely hard to get up from naps and even after i get up I’m still exhausted just like you usually are. No matter how much i sleep i will always be tired since my sleeping schedule is so thrown off from my busy schedule in college. I tend to have to set several alarms to wake me up since i usually end up falling back to sleep after snoozing my alarm. I may try to start taking shorter “power” naps to see if i feel more awake after. It seems like its a lot more efficient to take these shorter naps because our body can rest without fully shutting off, allowing us to wake up easily and be energized. Here is an article talking about how colleges like michigan have been adding napping rooms by there studying and testing locations since naps are so important for success in your academics. If you are interested in reading more just hit the link! http://time.com/3211964/nap-rooms-at-universities/?iid=sr-link3
    Keep up the good work!

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