This stress and anxiety can significantly impact the quality of our sleep. Our modern day lives present physical and emotional stresses from a multitude of inputs such as work, family life, travel, medical issues and over-stimulation from technology. Getting good quality shut eye can be a real challenge for many people. According to Ruth Varkovitzky, Phd, licensed clinical psychologist, REM sleep “helps with consolidation of learning, memory as well as emotional processing”.
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In this stage we experience Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep where we start to dream and our brain activity is almost as busy as when we are awake and alert. We then reach the final stage of the cycle, our deepest sleep yet. This is where our body repairs and our immune system strengthens. We then slip into another light sleep in the second phase, moving into a deep sleep in the third phase, commonly known as slow-wave sleep, where your brain waves are about 10 times slower than normal. The first stage is known as non-REM sleep, a light sleep where we doze off. These are cycles of about 90minutes, and are important to our health in equal measure.
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When we sleep, we experience four different sleep stages. In this scenario our sleep is restful and restorative and we wake up feeling refreshed.
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But what does quality sleep actually mean? According to Bruce Forman, PhD, a Florida-based psychologist, quality sleep happens when our brains and body experience a healthy balance of both REM sleep and non-REM sleep. It is an essential component of human health that impacts our learning, memory, immune system, stress management, motor skills and even our genetic code! Every living organism on the planet needs sleep, yet millions of us suffer from a lack of it and experience adverse knock on effects in our day to day life.Īccording to sleep specialists, it is the quality of sleep that matters, not so much the quantity. Sleep is vital for our physical and mental well being. “Sleep is your life-support system” - Matthew Walker, Sleep Scientist