Do you really know what happens when you drift off to sleep?
You may think your body is shutting down and relaxing but it’s actually hard at work.
What Is REM Sleep?
According to the National Sleep Foundation, what we refer to as “sleep” involves transitions between three different states:
- wakefulness
- REM sleep (rapid eye movement), associated with dreaming
- and N-REM sleep (non-REM). During N-REM,” the recorded electrical activity of the brain looks similar to that which occurs during waking.”
Why Is It So Important?
REM sleep seems to play a critical role in consolidating memories and therefore learning.Harvard Research has been focused on sleep and its role in procedural memory or the remembering “how” to do something, such as riding a bike or playing the piano.
Other aspects of sleep also play a role: motor learning seems to depend on the amount of lighter stages of sleep, while certain types of visual learning seem to depend on the amount and timing of REM sleep.
Are You Doing Your Part?
What are you doing before you close your eyes for the day plays an important part in getting adequate sleep. If you are up late watching tv or cuddling with your furry friends it might be causing you valuable shut-eye.
If you feel like you are doing everything right and still find yourself staring at the ceiling you might have a hormone imbalance or nutritional deficiency.
Click below to find out how Functional Nutrition can help you. Take our Nutritional Profile Quiz and you’ll get your results immediately.
Dr. Marina Rose uses Chiropractic care and Functional Nutrition to help people in the area around Palo Alto, CA get the sleep they need. She uses an investigative approach to help people find the root cause of their sleep issues.
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