Have you wondered why sometimes is it more difficult to be woken up at around 2 am than maybe around 11 pm? Why do you feel groggy when you wake up at that time? The answer lies in the fact that sleep is not uniform throughout but has stages. Deep sleep is one such stage that is associated with the slowest brain waves during sleep i.e. in this stage the body and the brain waves slow down and therefore make it very hard to wake up. This period of sleep is also known as slow-wave sleep. Experts recommend that adults must get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night out of which 13-23% is deep sleep (Mayoclinic, 2019).
There are 5 stages of sleep that rotate between non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement(REM).
Deep sleep is very important for a healthy brain and body:
An overall sleep of 7 to 9 hours is a must for most adults as it gives the body enough time in deeper states of sleep. The body tries to compensate for the lost sleep in upcoming days i.e. if the body does not get enough sleep one day then it tries to make up for the same the next day by moving through the cycles quickly to reach deep sleep faster and stay there longer. However, this should not happen regularly as it eventually starts to affect the brain.
What can be done to increase the amount of deep sleep?
Why are short afternoon naps not able to affect nighttime sleep compared to longer ones? It is also because the duration is not sufficient for the body to cycle into deep sleep thus not affecting the sleep drive.
Sleep deprivation adversely affects the body:
While all stages of sleep are important, deep sleep is the most essential one. On average, if you sleep for 8 hours, then you get around 1-2 hours of deep sleep which is healthy.
“Sleep is the best meditation.” -Dalai Lama
