― A D V I C E ―
THE SLEEP TRAIN
Every night, our sleep is organised into between four and six successive cycles or ‘trains’. Each cycle lasts around 90 minutes and includes various stages.
Between two ‘sleep trains’, we wake up for a few seconds before falling straight back to sleep – but sometimes we miss the next ‘train’, and that’s when we have a period of insomnia.
20 '
30 '
40 '
10 '
The body is resting, producing antibodies and growth hormone.
Dream sleep
5-10 mins
70-100 mins
10-15 mins
GOING TO SLEEP You go to bed. You feel good
VERY LIGHT SLOW SLEEP You can hear noises in the house but don’t feel like reacting to them. You can understand conversations.
LIGHT SLEEP You can still hear but you no longer make sense of what you’re hearing.
DEEP SLOW SLEEP You can no longer hear anything. You’re cut off from the world.
VERY DEEP SLOW SLEEP You sleep very deeply.
RAPID EYE MOVEMENT SLEEP The brain recharges its batteries and logs what it’s learned during the day.
LATENCY You wake up – or get on board a new ‘train’.
If you don’t go to bed when the ‘sleep train’ comes, you’re very likely not to get to sleep before the next cycle, typically around 90 to 120 minutes later. This is also the average length of a period of insomnia.
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