Sleep expert reveals why a light snooze can be just as important for your health as deep sleep
Sleep expert reveals why a light snooze can be just as important to your health as deep sleep
- Dr. Chester Wu has revealed why light sleep can be very beneficial for the mind
- A quick snooze can help improve your alertness and cognitive performance
- Find the full explanation of the benefits of light sleep below
Light sleep is critical to our health, even though we may not always hear it, and a short nap can improve your cognitive performance.
While many people will be familiar with the reported benefits of deep or REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, the benefits of lighter sleep are less well known.
Sleep is divided into five stages – awake, N1, N2, N3 and REM – and each stage is deeper than the last.
Light sleep can refer to stages N1, N2, or both, and accounts for about half of our sleep time.
Dr. Chester Wu, MD, medical reviewer at Rise Science explains the benefits of light sleep below.
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is credited with restoring energy and promoting emotional processing, but the benefits of light sleep are less well known
According to a sleep expert, even a short nap can help improve your alertness and cognitive performance
What Happens in Light Sleep?
Dr. Wu explained, “Light sleep serves as a transition between wakefulness and the deeper stages of sleep.
“It allows the body and mind to slow down and prepare for deep sleep and REM sleep, which are crucial for physical and mental recovery.”
During light sleep, your heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature all drop, allowing your body to conserve energy and use more resources for repair and recovery.
Light sleep is essential for health and well-being.
Dr. Chester Wu, MD, Rise Science
In addition to this broad shutdown, there are also flickers of brain activity called “sleep spindles” that are not fully understood, but scientists believe they may play a role in forming and consolidating memory.
What are the benefits of light sleep?
As mentioned above, REM sleep is largely seen as the most beneficial stage of sleep.
Without prejudice to this, Dr. Wu explained that light sleep still has significant benefits on its own.
“Light sleep is crucial to health and well-being,” he said.
“Although REM sleep is often linked to memory consolidation, recent studies suggest that light sleep also plays a role in this process, especially in the consolidation of motor memory – the memory of how to perform physical tasks.”
In addition, he said research shows that “short periods of light sleep, such as power naps, can increase alertness and cognitive performance.”
Dr Wu also pointed out that instead of “light sleep,” Apple actually uses the term “core sleep” in their sleep monitoring.
How much light sleep do you need?
Dr Wu explained that the amount of light sleep we need is unique from person to person and day to day
He said: ‘Healthy sleep encompasses all stages of sleep based on your needs – our brain optimizes each night based on factors such as our health and whether we are sleep deprived.
“To get enough of each sleep stage, it’s best to prioritize getting enough naturalistic sleep through healthy sleep hygiene habits, rather than just focusing on increasing or decreasing the time spent in a particular sleep stage.”