What are the phases of sleep and how do they help our physical and emotional life?

As we know, sleep is essential for the well-being of our body, since rest restores and strengthens our entire body. But did you know that sleep has phases and cycles that act directly on our health? Here we tell you.

Sleep and well-being

The time we spend sleeping, although it is time of rest for usit is a time of great activity for our brain, although an activity that also allows it to rest in certain functions and restore others.

Sleep occurs in phases and cycles that help our well-being and processes such as relaxation, memory, or even healing emotional wounds.

Sleep phases and cycles:

1. Phase I or numbness: Sleep is a cyclical activity that organize in periods approximately 90 minutes and restarts during the hours that a person is asleep, generally seven to eight hours. The first of these phases is that of numbness, which is estimated in the first quarter of an hour after waking.

2. Phase II or light sleep: This phase occupies most of the sleep cycle. It is the phase of detachment from the environment and takes up about half of the entire sleep cycle. It is at this stage that the heart and respiratory rate slow down at body rest. It is a fundamental phase For resting.
3. Phase III or transition: It is a really short phase, about four minutes, where go from light sleep to deep sleep or delta. Relaxation reaches its maximum point here and it is here where an essential process for human development occurs: growthsince the brain secretes GH, the so-called “growth hormone.”
4. Phase IV or delta: It is a period almost as long as light sleep, it lasts approximately 20% of the cycle and is what really accounts for the sleep quality. It is the period in which the heart rate and blood pressure are the lowest during the entire cycle. It is here where processes of great importance occur such as renewal and optimization of the immune system.
5. Phase VI or REM sleep: The so-called REM sleep is the phase of the cycle that presents increased amount of brain activity, close to what one has during wakefulness. Although brain functioning is the highest, body movement is zero, our muscles are practically blocked. The presence of emotional experiences is reactivated in this phase of sleep, which favors heal emotional damage or manage emotional conditions during the vigil.