What happens in the body during sleep? Processes in the body during sleep

It is not a secret for anyone that a dream is a vital biological need of the body. It helps to restore the immunity of a person, to regulate the information received in the wakefulness process and to support many more processes, to the end, by the way, never studied. More about what happens to a person during sleep, we'll talk further.

Stages of sleep

Our soul and body require rest, and the most indispensable in this regard is sleep. Having missed it for some reason, we will feel that we can not move normally, since coordination has been disrupted, and the memory and ability to concentrate have markedly weakened. If the shortness becomes prolonged, then all these symptoms are fixed, amplified and, by the way, become irreversible. Knowingly, sleep deprivation was always considered cruel torture.

For the average 8 hours allocated by a person for a healthy night's rest, he has 5 cycles of sleep lasting up to 100 minutes. In this case, each of them has two phases - slow and fast sleep. How do they flow?

To understand what happens during sleep, let's take a closer look at its stages.

Quick sleep

Tired or poorly fallen asleep the day before the person at the slightest opportunity falls asleep and immediately enters the phase of the so-called rapid, or paradoxical sleep.

He was called this because during this time the sleeping electroencephalogram, heart rate and breathing rates are similar to those of the waking person, but virtually all the muscles (except the diaphragm, the muscles of the auditory ossicles, and also the holding eyelids and moving the eyeball) lose their tonus completely . That is, what happens during sleep in its fast (paradoxical) phase can be characterized as follows: the body is already asleep, and the brain is still working. By the way, it is at this time that we see the brightest and most easily remembered dreams.

After 20 minutes from the beginning of falling asleep, a person enters a phase of slow sleep.

What happens during a slow sleep

The share of slow sleep, as experts found, account for 75% of all night rest. It is customary to consider several stages of this phase.

1. A nap. If you are healthy and go to bed on time, it takes 5-10 minutes, during which time you are immersed in a deeper sleep.
2. Dive into a dream. This stage, as a rule, lasts about 20 minutes. What happens in the body during sleep at this stage? The process is characterized by a slowing of the heartbeat, a decrease in body temperature and the appearance on the EEG of the so-called "sleepy spindles" (short bursts of brain activity with low amplitude), during which the person's consciousness is practically turned off.
3. Deep dream.
4. The deepest delta sleep. The sleeper is difficult to wake up at this time. And even waking up, he can not come to himself for a long time. It is at this stage that manifestations of sleepwalking, enuresis, conversation in a dream and nightmares are possible.

Then the person, as if starting to wake up, enters a state of fast sleep. Similar phase changes occur throughout the rest, and if the last was sufficient, then, waking up, a person feels fresh, cheerful, renewed.

Physiological processes occurring in a dream

In the body of a sleeping person, despite its external immobility, relaxation and lack of response to stimuli (of course, if they are not very strong), many processes proceed.

• Through the skin at this time, as a rule, a lot of moisture evaporates, which leads to a small weight loss.
• Increases the production of a special protein - collagen, which, by the way, contributes to strengthening the vessels and restoring the elasticity of the skin. Apparently, the movie and variety stars do not dissimulate, saying that a strong 8-hour dream helps them look good (although, it is worth noting: not immediately after a dense dinner).
• In addition, the person in the dream is growing (yes, it's not at all fiction moms and grandmothers who do not know how to put a restless child in bed), since his growth hormone at this time has the highest concentration of blood.
• As a person dives into sleep, one after another practically all the muscles of the body relax except one that keeps the eyelids closed. They remain tense, and the eyeballs under them move, which, by the way, indicates a stage of deep slow sleep.

As you can see, the processes in the body during sleep are diverse - with their help, a kind of cleaning is carried out, preparing the body for daytime wakefulness.

What is a dream for the brain?

Everyone knows that our brain does not sleep during sleep. During the night rest, he practically ceases to react to external stimuli and concentrates on internal needs, performing the main task at this time - sorting and processing the day information and sending it to the relevant areas of the "entrusted territory."

By the way, thanks to this process, everything that happens to the brain during sleep can be considered a kind of "general cleaning". It helps us wake up in the morning with another - clear and logical - look at the problems, which seemed yesterday unresolvable. And schoolchildren and students have long enjoyed this, noticing that the material that you study before going to bed is best remembered.

If a person has a regular chronic lack of sleep, the brain does not have enough time to structure and hammer into the "memory cells" the information received, which leads to complaints of fog in the head and a severe memory impairment.

How does brainwashing occur?

Asked by the question: "What happens in the body during sleep?", The researchers found that a similar state for brain cells and tissues is akin to a kind of "cleansing enema." After all, toxins that enter the body with food or as a result of stress-related failures, not only in the digestive tract, liver or kidneys. They, it turns out, accumulate in the cerebral fluid, both in the spine and in the cranium.

In a dream, the glial cells surrounding the neurons cringe, shrinking in size, whereby the intercellular space becomes larger and allows more fluid to pass through. And it, in turn, also removes toxins from nervous tissues, saving us from the formation of protein plaques, which would impede signaling between neurons and would contribute to the early development of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.

What does a person need to sleep?

So, we discussed what happens in the body during sleep. To rest and to get up after him cheerful and renewed, each of us needs a different time. In total people sleep for an average of five to ten hours a day. Somnologists (specialists dealing with problems of sleep and its influence on human health) believe that it is more important for us not the quantity, but the quality of the night rest.

It is noticed that people who sleep peacefully and rarely change their pose, feel themselves more cheerful and rested in the morning than those who turn around a lot. But why, having occupied a seemingly comfortable position in bed, we, nevertheless, change the pose? It turns out that our night movements in many respects depend on external stimuli - flashes of light, noise, changes in air temperature, the stirring of a nearby spouse or child, and so on.

Somnologists believe that 70% of such movements are badly reflected in the quality of sleep, or rather, on its ability to go into the deep phase. And this just does not allow a person to fully sleep. Often, we are forced to change the pose and a hard surface, and a full stomach, and poor health, and therefore, going to rest, you need to create yourself the most comfortable conditions.

About prophetic dreams

Somnologists, studying dreams, understood and in the so-called "prophetic dreams" and came to the conclusion that in reality there is nothing mystical about them. Trying to solve them, do not fantasize what happens to the soul during sleep. It's not she wanders in higher worlds, no, just in the phase of slow sleep, the human brain catches signals coming from the internal organs and transmits them in the form of bright images. A person sees colored dreams, and can interpret them based on simple analogies.

For example, if you see rotten vegetables or raw meat (in short, inedible foods), then there are problems with the digestive system. And terrible dreams that a person is suffocating or drowning, as a rule, indicate a violation of the respiratory organs. A burning fire can be imagined with angina pectoris, since one of the symptoms of this pathology is just the burning sensation in the chest.

But flying in a dream is a clear sign of growth in children and positive development in adults.

The importance of sleep is difficult to overestimate

Everything that happens in the body during sleep, does not give rest to the researchers. This is a much needed and irreplaceable human condition studied by physicians, psychiatrists and even esoterics.

Around the above topic there are many myths and sensations, but do not get too involved with them, because sleep is primarily an opportunity to restore vitality and maintain health. Therefore, take care of your sleep and treat the described physiological process with respect!