Is There an “Ideal” Sleep Cycle Graph?

Did you wake up feeling tired today? How is that possible? After all, you got a solid eight hours of sleep… or did you?

You may have spent much of that time in restless slumber or lying there with your eyes closed. That’s not the restorative, high-quality sleep we all need each night.

But how do you know how much sleep makes sense for you? And how do you get it? Is there an “ideal” sleep cycle graph everyone should follow?

The Four Sleep Stages

There’s no one-size-fits-all sleep graph — your ideal sleep cycles are unique. But for a truly refreshing night’s rest, everyone needs to experience multiple complete sleep stages:

1. Pre-sleep: This is the stage when you’re drowsy and winding down from your day — perhaps when you start to go in and out of sleep in front of the TV. Your perception of time may blur as you nod off and awaken.
2. Light sleep: In this restful stage, you lie in bed, eyes closed. You generally spend about half your sleep time in this stage of sleep, with the other 50% divided between deep and REM sleep.
3. Deep sleep: This stage focuses on physiological repair. Your body recovers from exertion and stress. To support this, your heart rate dips and your breathing slows. Body temperature tends to cool slightly.
4. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep: Here, you enter a state of vivid dreaming where your brain is extraordinarily active (perhaps even more than during waking hours) as it processes your emotions and memories. You experience rapid eye movement; otherwise, your body is immobile. Heart rate and temperature may increase; breathing becomes more rhythmic.

Your Ideal Sleep Cycle Graph

Again, an ideal sleep cycle graph is unique to your sleep patterns, which change daily.

You don’t always spend a specific amount of time in each sleep stage. You constantly move through stages in bursts, not spending prolonged time in any of them. Your body innately knows what’s right for you and will do what’s necessary to give you restorative sleep.

For any given night of sleep, six high-quality hours of repeatedly cycling through sleep stages will benefit your body and brain more than nine hours of restless or disturbed sleep.

Sleep science tells us we usually spend the first half of a night’s slumber cycling between light and deep sleep. In the second half, we cycle between deep and REM sleep. No single stage is the most vital, but any sleep cycle missing a stage isn’t truly high-quality sleep.

(A side note: We all have dreams. If you don’t recall yours, it doesn’t mean you skipped REM sleep.)

Let’s look at two sample sleep cycle graphs depicting the stages of a night’s sleep:

1. This graph illustrates how sleep stages might be segmented in a sleep cycle. The amount of time spent in each stage varies for each cycle.

1. This sample sleep cycle from an Apple Watch Sleep Stage Tracker breaks down in more detail the time spent in every cycle stage.

What Affects Sleep Cycles?

Your daily activities impact, for better or worse, how you sleep each night. Here are some factors that affect sleep cycles:

• Physical exercise: Increased physical activity (like regular gym fitness or running a marathon) increases deep sleep.
• Medication and supplements: While certain sleep aids (Ambien, Valium, Xanax, etc.) may increase your hours of sleep, they can also interfere with the quality of sleep cycles and stages, preventing your body and brain from getting what they need. Melatonin and CBD oils, used in moderation, promote healthy sleep cycling for some.
• Diet: Spicy foods that increase your core temperature — or high-protein, high-fat foods that take time to break down — often muddle sleep cycles. Avoid these foods at least three hours before going to sleep.
• Alcohol: A drink or two may help you fall asleep. But alcohol slows sleep cycles, so you don’t get as many as you need. You may find yourself awake again partway through the night. And even without a hangover, you could still feel poorly and mentally foggy the next day.
• Caffeine: Caffeine is another sleep-cycle disruptor. Avoid coffee, tea, energy drinks, and soda at least six hours before bedtime.
• Stress: Daily stressors, like work pressures or awakening multiple times a night to tend to a newborn, can disorder sleep cycles or lead to an overabundance of REM sleep.
• Environmental factors:
  • Blue light from tech devices suppresses the release of melatonin, the “drowsy” hormone. Switch off the computer, phone, and TV screens two hours before bedtime.
  • Sleep specialists recommend setting your bedroom temperature in the mid-60s, the most comfortable range for sleep.
• Health conditions: Healing from an injury or managing a health issue (like sleep apnea, which continually jolts you awake to breathe) can impede your progress through all the sleep stages.
• Age: Common in adults over 60, insomnia causes a decrease in REM sleep cycles.

Practical Tips

Few things are as basic to your wellness as a restful night’s sleep. Here are a few more tips to encourage healthy sleep cycles and the restorative energy they bring:

• Follow the same relaxation routine each night so your body and brain know when to wind down and prepare for sleep.
• Sleep in complete darkness. A darkened room is the ideal choice to encourage good sleep. Warm lighting with yellow undertones may also be calming at bedtime.
• Consider tracking your sleep with a wearable device that monitors sleep patterns and behaviors to identify possible sleep disorders. While there’s no ideal sleep cycle graph, some tracker companies promote longitudinal sleep tracking, which tracks sleep over a week or month to see how certain periods might be interrelated.

Struggling to get a good night’s sleep? Perhaps the most important tip we can give you is to see your concierge doctor.

Your Priority Physicians can help get your sleep cycles back on track so you wake up alert and refreshed daily. Get in touch!