Why We Need REM Sleep

Better Sleep and Gamer Advantage Glasses

As a company focused on helping gamers get better sleep, it’s helpful to dive more into the stages of sleep and their meaning. REM sleep is the focus of this blog, and the article “What is REM Sleep” by the National Sleep Foundation will help us explain more about it. According to the article, this stage of sleep “has a major impact on your memory, mental focus, and mood.” Pairing this information with the benefits of Gamer Advantage glasses help showcase how they’ve been helping gamers.

Sleep Stages and Cycles

According to the article, sleep is usually divided into two stages known as REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement) with NREM consisting of beginning to fall asleep, light sleep, and deep sleep. It also mentions that sleep shifts between cycles of REM and NREM around every 90 minutes. Pertaining to deep sleep, it states “breathing slows down, your blood pressure drops, and your energy is renewed.”

In terms of REM sleep and later, sleep cycles in general, it “accounts of approximately 25 percent of sleep time while the NREM stage takes up the other 75 percent. Ideally, you want to achieve five or six full sleep cycles, the equivalent to seven and a half to nine hours of sleep each night.”

What Happens During REM Sleep? Why Does It Matter?

Putting it simply, the article mentions that when “your eyes move rapidly (giving this stage its name), darting back and forth under your closed lids,” this is a characteristic of REM sleep along with the occurrence of dreaming. In addition, it states “REM sleeps involves more brain activity than NREM and is considered a more “wakeful” state, as your heart rate and blood pressure increase to levels close to what you experience when you are awake.”

Regarding the value of this stage of the sleep cycle, the brain consolidating and processing new information for retention in long-term memory and increased mental concentration and mood regulation are mentioned as benefits. At the same time, the article warns of a weakened immune system, sensing pain more intensely, and the blockage of growing new healthy cells being drawbacks of not getting enough REM sleep.

How To Get More REM Sleep

Interestingly, the article does mention “sleep-inhibiting blue light” as one of the culprits that could separate you from the REM sleep you need. Of course, as was mentioned previously, the benefits of REM sleep should further help gamers understand the need to block blue light with Gamer Advantage glasses. Particularly as they can be worn indoors and outdoors (with the polarized sun clip) and are flexible for headsets, it’s never been easier to be in comfort all day and protect the eyes.

Source:

https://www.thensf.org/what-is-rem-sleep/

Photo by Doğukan Şahin on Unsplash