By Saumya Singh
in 
In today’s day and age, many factors interfere with a good night’s sleep — from work stress and family responsibilities to unexpected challenges, such as illnesses. It’s no wonder that quality sleep is sometimes elusive. What constitutes a healthy sleep cycle? It comprises of 5 stages-
- Stage one: Within a couple of minutes of dropping off, alpha and beta waves are generated by your brain as soon as the eye movement slows down, you’re nearly in the light phase, that is, you’re still alert and can be woken up.
- Stage two: While you’re still in the light sleep phase, your brain wave frequency decreases and you slowly crawl into a power nap; it’s after this sleep phase that you would want to wake up.
- Stage three: When you enter stage three, you could experience things like- Sleepwalking, Bad dreams, Talking while sleeping (These behaviors occur while transitioning between REM and NON-REM sleep.
- Stage four: You indulge yourself in a fine deep sleep as delta waves ( slow brain waves) are continuously produced by your brain.
- Stage five(REM): Generally, you enter the REM stage around 90 minutes after falling asleep. In this final stage of your sleep, your brain becomes more active and you start dreaming. Your eyes may jerk rapidly in different directions. Also, your heart and blood pressure may rise along with your breathing.
Good sleep helps you to wake up fresh and rejuvenated. It helps you to brighten up your day and proceed with your tasks more effectively. Along with that, it helps you deal with stress more easily and you find yourself jolly and happy.