Ever wonder what your brain and body do while you are sleeping? Well, sleep is the time the brain directs the body to heal and repair itself, rebuild damaged or worn-out tissues, and restore chemical balance.
And if that's not enough, your immune system also manufactures more natural killer cells to fight off infection and disease. Also, your pituitary gland produces growth hormones, which in children, promotes growth, but in adults helps repairs and renew tissue.
\"sleep Well\"
Although your body may be essentially motionless for much of the night, your brain is active, busily cycling through the five stages of sleep. Each cycle occurs several times throughout the night.
Among other things, your brain is organizing and storing memories. Interestingly, one type of sleep occurring each night is accompanied by rapid eye movements (REM). REM sleep is the time when most dreaming takes place.
However, you generally won't recall the content of your dream unless someone or something awakens you during the dream, and you remain awake long enough for memory to activate.
Even with all these activity, your brain still manages to recharge during a good night's sleep so that you awaken felling energized and ready to go. But if you don't sleep well, you awaken groggy and fell irritable because poor sleep interferes with your brain's ability to prepare itself for another day of physical and mental activity.
Stages of sleep
If you think you just fall into bed, turn the lights out, go to sleep and remain in relatively still and inactive during the night, you don't have the whole picture. Even though sleep is restorative and allows you to recharge your batteries, it's still a very active time for your brain, which orchestrates a wide range of nighttime activities while you snooze.
You may be surprised to find out that sleep is divided into five distinct stages that serve different purposes. Stages 1 through 4 are known as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) or non-REM sleep. The fifth stage is the REM stage where the most dreaming occurs.
The brain cycles through these five stages about five or six times each night, and as night progresses, and your brain continues to cycle through the sleep stages, REM sleep periods become longer, and deep sleep periods get shorter.
As morning draws nearer and you gradually approach wakefulness deep sleep ceases almost entirely and your brain cycles between Stages 1, 2 and REM sleep.
What REALLY Happens When You Sleep?
Alvaro Castillo has been writing health articles for five years. One of his specializations has been on nighttime health, such as insomnia, as well as stress and headaches. For more information check out his website at [http://www.mynighttimehealth.com]
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