What Does Your Brain Do While You Sleep?

Sleeping is both a fascinating and necessary process for all people. Thanks to the psychological and neuroanatomical information that was lacking in the past, this phenomenon has always been surrounded by mystery and speculation. These days, however, there are many research studies that explain what the brain does while you sleep.

What happens in your brain while you sleep?

During the night when you sleep, the brain goes through several stages of sleep with several levels of brain activity: four of these stages are non-REM sleep, and the fifth is REM sleep.

• During the  first phase, you  experience drowsiness, your muscles begin to relax, and your brain activity slows down. However, this is a light sleep phase, so you can easily wake up from it.

• In the  second phase,  the body’s temperature, heart rate and respiration begin to decline progressively.
• During the  third and fourth phases,  you are in a deeper phase of sleep where the activity of the brain has a very low frequency. At this point it is more difficult to wake up and it is usually when one can experience parasomnia : sleep terror and sleepwalking.
• Then we have the  REM phase,  which is when you experience Rapid Eye Movement . Your muscle tone is drastically reduced, and your breathing and heart rate become irregular. It is during this phase that your dreams come true. If you wake up during this phase, you will probably remember what you dreamed of.

A complete sleep cycle lasts for about 100 minutes. The first 60-70 minutes we spend in the first four phases. Finally, during a normal night’s sleep, you will complete between four and six cycles.

What does your brain do while you sleep?

Learning and memory

It has been demonstrated that memory and preservation become much better after a period of sleep similar to a wake-rest period. The positive effects are more prominent in terms of declarative / explicit memory (which is related to facts and events) and procedural memory (which is related to abilities and motor skills).

Even short periods of sleep (wondering 6 minutes) can have a positive impact  when it comes to informative preservation. The more you sleep, the better it is for your memory.

Another interesting fact is that the time between learning and sleeping is actually very relevant. Thus, if you want to consolidate certain information, it will be very useful to sleep after studying.

Energy saving

While this is not the main goal of sleep, it is true that sleeping helps preserve or recover the energy you used during the day. Especially during the third and fourth phases, your metabolic rate increases: your body cools down and your heart rate and breathing slow down, you consume less oxygen, and you have less muscle tone. Furthermore, when you use a lot of energy during the day, you tend to sleep more.

Restoration

Sleep is essential to fight fatigue and to get the body back to its “original” state. Studies have shown that more sleep after a stressful period can make up for the brain’s mental burden. Although physical exhaustion disappears at rest, mental exhaustion actually requires sleep.

Looking for solutions

You have probably heard someone say that they “have to sleep on it”. This is an expression that actually has some scientific truth: individuals who spend more time in the REM phase come up with more creative solutions.

Sleep has to do with creative and problem-solving skills. When you sleep, the brain suggests information and combines ideas. The strange dreams that do not make sense are the way your brain processes, explores and practices several different solutions to your real problems.

This is why it is absolutely necessary to have an excellent quality of sleep. Your body, and especially your mind, needs time to restore itself, consolidate information, and find new perspectives and solutions. Having good sleep habits is taking care of your brain.