Why You May Not Be Getting the Great Sleep You Think You Are

Why You May Not Be Getting the Great Sleep You Think You Are

You might be someone who really tries to practice good sleep habits. You don’t watch anything stimulating right before bed. You avoid caffeine in the afternoon, so it doesn’t affect your sleep.

You work to keep your sleeping environment clean and peaceful. You have a good mattress and comfortable blankets. In other words, you’re doing everything right - including going to bed at a decent hour and staying there for a full 8 hours.

On the surface, all might look well, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve actually achieved a good rest, because good sleep isn’t defined by the number of hours you’re in bed. Instead, it all has to do with the level of sleep that you were able to achieve.

You need to know what these levels are because these can impact your weight. When you sleep, you don’t sleep in one continual cycle. Your sleep is broken up by stages. In a beneficial sleep cycle, you progress through the stages without waking up.

Though there are four widely recognized stages of sleep, you can have more. Your sleep cycles will vary by the number of minutes. Each cycle can have a differing duration, depending on things such as what you ate or drank before bed, whether you’re young or old and the state of your health. ....