What is Light Sleep? Everything You Need to Know
You might think light sleep is not as beneficial to a good night’s rest compared to other phases of sleep, but that’s far from the truth. All the sleep stages are integral to getting high-quality sleep every single night, and light sleep is where it all starts. In this article, we’ll detail what light sleep is and what your body goes through during this stage.
What is Light Sleep? Everything You Need to Know
When you sleep, your body goes through several sleep cycles comprised of four sleep stages. The first of these is light sleep. Together, these make-up roughly half of a typical night of sleep. This is typically the beginning of the sleep cycle as we transition from full wakefulness to light sleep. In total, you spend about half of your total sleep time in light sleep.
What Happens During Light Sleep?
During light sleep, your heart and breathing rates are lower than they are when you are awake. There are bursts of electrical activity in your brain, which boost your brain’s communication system and your ability to learn and remember. You dream during light sleep, but these dreams don’t form the same coherent, story-like narrative as dreams in REM sleep do. Because your body is still sensitive to noise, temperature, touch, and movement during this stage, it’s easier to wake up in light sleep. Sometimes, if you’re woken up during this stage, it may feel like you weren’t even sleeping at all.
REM is often considered the most important sleep stage, but light sleep is the first step to getting a healthy night’s rest. It’s part of the complete sleep cycle, and though it may sound like it won’t yield restfulness, it’s actually quite the opposite.
Light Sleep and Feeling Energized
When you’re ready to get up for the day, it’s best to do so during light sleep. Our Smart Alarm can help with that. Just set the time frame you’d like to wake up in, and the Smart Alarm will wake you at the ideal moment in your sleep cycle. That way, you can rise feeling refreshed and ready for the day.