Non Rapid Eye Movement Research Paper

When the body is tired from a long day, it is usually restored by sleeping. Sleep helps the body become energized for the next morning, but it mostly restores memory. The process of the restoration of memories and its functions are included in the sleep stages. The body sometimes doesn’t receive enough sleep and there are ways to avoid the negative effects. Sleep has a positive effect on restoring the body’s memories.
When someone is sleeping, memory goes through different sleep stages. They are divided in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and Non Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep (Walker). REM is the light sleep that occurs in the sleep transition. This causes random eye movements to occur and it also paralyzes or jerks the muscles, which is why snoring occurs and other breathing problems happen. REM is also when dreams happen and causes the body to have high heart rates. NREM is the deep sleep that occurs in the sleep transition. This is the dreamless sleep, and the …show more content…
In stage one, there is a transition from drowsiness to a light sleep. This is the time when the eyes try to stay open and the muscles begin to relax. Even though memories are formed throughout the day, this is when the memories are transferred into the back of the brain as storage (Steiger). In stage two, the dreamless sleep occurs and the body is now relaxing. This is when memory encoding starts to begin and consolidation is not occurring at this moment. After that, stages three and four are when SWS is active and synchronised slow waves are found. This is when the body has the most rest (Steiger). The right amount of sleep will have more of the memory encoding process to finish. Finally, REM happens and most of the time the sleep cycle is repeated and restarts when it is disrupted. When REM is occurring, it increases the demands for sleep consolidation for the body when it wakes up