Welcome my friends again to my blog and the title of today’s post is likely a question you have heard many times before. I’m glad you are visiting today. – David

After all, when we groggily raise our heads in the morning and awareness returns; How was your sleep last night? might be one of the first questions of the day you receive.

According to Government of Canada health research over ONE-THIRD of Canadians between the ages of 5-79 fail to obtain the daily recommended amount of sleep.

Perhaps worse is that OVER 25% of adults report problems falling asleep, or staying asleep.

Insufficient sleep is big problem and is connected to a plethora of negative health problems including higher mortality and heart disease.

It’s not just physical either, insufficient sleep has been connected higher risk of depression and anxiety.

Sleep actually contributes to how our brains function, how our nerve cells communicate. Evidence now indicates that dreaming and rapid eye movement sleeps contributes to the removal of toxins that build up in our brains during our busy days. Dreaming is actually a healthy type of brain-washing.

Strangely enough I didn’t understand much about sleep until recently, and since it’s a huge chunk of our lives I felt that was strange.

I think I imagined the sleep process was like sinking into quicksand-oblivion and then re-awakening when I bob to the surface awake. That was all wrong.

Sleeping is more like a wheel, and as we sleep we rotate through different stages and one rotation is a sleep cycle.

What are the stages you ask?

First stage I call it the “Dozing Off” stage. In this stage our minds calm down, our muscles relax, eye movements and heartbeat slow down. In this stage you are just barely sleeping.

Second stage I call it “Light Sleep.” In this stage eye movements stop, and our body temperature drops. This stage shortens as you repeat the stages of sleep multiple times in one night. You can still be woken up easily in this stage of sleep.

Third Stage is a form of deep sleep I call “Hibernation” and it’s the deep core sleep where breathing and your heart rate are at their lowest. This is the stage of sleep that is the most refreshing and hopefully 80% of your sleep is in this stage of sleep. In this hibernation stage your body functions slow to a crawl (it’s a good idea to have an empty tummy) and it allows for head-to-toe restoration. Even the bones and muscles are strengthened in this stage and the immune system is boosted.

The fourth stage of sleep is “Vivid Dreaming“. This stage has rapid eye movements, your brain activity spikes, breathing, heart rate and blood pressure go UP! This is when you have those exciting dreams where you are running or fighting etc but our bodies have outsmarted us because in this stage of sleep our muscles are paralyzed. It’s a good thing ! It’s in this stage of sleep that sleep researchers think that the brain expels the toxins that have accumulated during the day.

Those are the four stages of sleep that make up ONE sleep cycle that on average last 90 minutes or so. It’s not uncommon to be able to sleep through more than one cycle in a night.

To summarize; sleep is when your brain cycles through four different stages of brain activity, all of which are important and each cycle takes roughly 90 minu53w and five to six cycles are optimum for our health.

Now that I have learned about these stages of sleep I understand why when I wake up in the night I don’t feel tired; it’s because in the middle of the night I am waking up naturally in stage one.

I feel groggy though when I am woken up in the middle of stage 3. That’s why if I am woken up after hitting the snooze button I feel groggy because I have gone into stage 3 hibernation sleep and my body is halfway through the deepest stage of a sleep cycle.

Now that I know it’s natural to go through stages of light sleep I try to roll over and go back to sleep and back to the deep core sleep when I complete the Vivid dreaming stage of sleep.

I am sure you agree that Sleep is an important part of your daily routine after all you spend about one-third of your time doing it.

I hope that today’s post was informational. ♥

I am sure it also makes sense that Quality sleep—and getting enough of it at the right times—is as essential to survival as food and water.

This is the 3 – 2 – 1 tips for sleeping for you to consider.

3 hours before bed:           No more food or alcohol.

2 hours before bed:           No more work.

1 hour before bed:             No more screen time (shut off all phones, TVs and computers).

If you do the above then perhaps Zero will be the number of times you’ll need to hit snooze in the morning.♥

Happy dreams everyone!

Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” — Thomas Dekker, American Actor