Stage one of the sleep cycle is known as the transitional phase. It is accompanied by floating in and out of consciousness. This stage is non-REM sleep, and one can be partially awake. Stage two is also a non-REM phase and involves lighter sleep. The heart rate starts to reduce at this stage, and the overall body temperature also decreases. Stage two can involve periods of muscle relaxation while stages 3 and 4 entails deep sleep. These two are the periods of slow-wave sleep. The waves in the brain slow, and a person is unlikely to wake up at this stage. Stages 3 and 4 are still non-REM (Shi et al., 2017). The fifth stage is that of rapid eye movement. Unlike the other phases, this phase involves the brain undergoing a range of activities.
Learning and memory occur mainly at stages 3 and 4, which are the periods of slow-wave sleep. The slow-wave sleep involves the non-REM phase when the brain activities slow down. Slow-wave sleep is a stage of deep sleep in which “memory consolidation takes place, and the neural connections are strengthened to form memories” (Shi et al., 2017). Even though recall occurs during the times, one is awake, and the consolidation takes place at deep sleep when the bran activities have completely slowed down. It involves the production of hormones, which increases memory and learning.
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My personal experience was with stage 4, which involves deep sleep. While in a deep sleep, I was awakened up and had a bad experience in the first five minutes. I looked confused and disoriented for the first few minutes after I woke up and took some time to get back to my consciousness. This experience impacted me negatively because after waking up disoriented, I spent the whole day feeling low and unable to concentrate on my tasks that day fully. Throughout the day, I appeared confused, and one would think that I had just woken up. The whole experience for that day was not a pleasing one for me.
Reference
Shi, W., Shang, P., Ma, Y., Sun, S., & Yeh, C. H. (2017). A comparison study on stages of sleep: Quantifying multiscale complexity using higher moments on coarse-graining. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation , 44 , 292-303.
