R & K Sleep Cycle

How important is your sleep to you? If you respond that you do not believe that it is, you might want to reconsider your response. Sleep is not only important to you mentally, but it can affect your health and learning. Your sleep cycle is divided up into four stages which include; light sleep, sleep spindles, and delta waves. Each of these stages are equally important and each serve a specific purpose for your body and mind. The first R&K stage of sleep is known as light sleep. Categorized as the “N1” stage, “theta wave activity increases and alpha wave activity fades away” (Ciccarelli, 2015, p. 144). During that period, your body falls into a state of sleep where you may not actually remember being asleep, and you may even hallucinate. Another occurrence that may happen during the night is that the body “jerks” as the muscles relax.The second R&K stage is called “sleep spindles”. This stage occurs after light sleep, and it is the point in which the body’s temperature cools, your heartbeat slows, and your breathing calms, falling out of its rhythmic pattern. Also, the brain will have “brief busts of activity lasting only a second or two” (Ciccarelli, 2015, p.144). If you are awoken while you are in this stage, you will know that you were asleep. …show more content…
These are the deepest stages of sleep, also known as “slow-wave sleep” (Ciccarelli, 2015, p. 144). During the last two stages, hormones are released from the pituitary glands. If children are woken up at night and their sleep state is abruptly ended, their growth may be delayed. After the last two stages, an individual may travel from the third stage back to the second, and then to a stage where the body starts waking up (Cicarelli, 2015, p.145 ). This is known as the R&K “REM” stage. Heartbeat starts to increase, and other signs of wakefulness will be present, such as the eyes moving quickly under the