{"id":10665,"date":"2020-07-16T21:06:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T01:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=10665"},"modified":"2020-07-17T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T19:01:37","slug":"is-rem-sleep-good-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-rem-sleep-good-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Is REM Sleep Good For You? The Surprising Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Is REM sleep good for you? Why is REM sleep good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you ask is REM sleep good for you, it’s important to think about the entirety of the human sleep cycle. REM sleep serves a certain purpose, and has specific effects on the human brain. So is REM sleep good for you? Let’s find out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How Sleep Cycles Change Through the Night<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Notice that not all sleep cycles look the same. As the sleep progresses through the night, a greater fraction of each cycle is spent in REM sleep. But is REM sleep good for you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why would the sleep cycles be unbalanced in this way? Why not just have all sleep cycles look the same, with 80% in NREM and 20% in REM, especially if we know the answer to the question is REM sleep good sleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author hypothesizes that it\u2019s like making a sculpture out of a mass of clay. Earlier in the night, more NREM is needed to clear out junk memories that aren\u2019t useful anymore. Then once only the useful stuff remains, REM strengthens what\u2019s left. This helps answer the question is REM sleep good for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: One way to think about this is that an animal might be interrupted in the middle of the night. So if an animal could only sleep 3 hours in one night, it\u2019d make sense for the more critical functions to be performed first, with the later functions being a luxury if the animal could sleep a full night. This may suggest that NREM performs a more vital <\/em>function for survival.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also beware of what this means for cutting your sleep short. If you normally sleep 8 hours<\/a>, and one night you have to cut sleep to 6 hours, then you\u2019re not just losing 25% of sleep – you might be losing 60-90% of your REM sleep! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, going to sleep later than usual might cut short your NREM sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is REM Sleep Good For You? What REM and NREM Look Like<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Is REM good sleep compared to NREM? REM and NREM are distinguishable by measuring electrical activity in the brain. NREM is characterized by slow (3-4 Hz) waves that propagate far from the frontal cortex to the back of the brain. REM is characterized by faster (30-40 Hz), frenetic activity that looks the same as being awake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wakeful thought looks frenetic because many different neural signals are occurring at once throughout the brain. An analogy: it\u2019s like a microphone picking up a football stadium full of distinct conversations. The summation of all the conversations just looks like noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, NREM sleep is a slow, pulsing wave that\u2019s noticeably different from REM sleep. So is REM good sleep? Continuing the analogy, it\u2019s like a stadium full of voices singing<\/a> in synchronization. That billions of neurons can do this together is awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the function of these slow NREM waves? By being lower frequency, slow NREM waves can propagate further without attenuation, like AM radio waves. The author suggests this is useful in transferring memories far across the brain, from temporary memory stores toward more permanent storage<\/strong>. It also allows communication across the brain for different sections to collaborate on their shared experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REM sleep looks like awake activity, and it\u2019s where dreams happen. A few odd things happen during REM sleep:<\/p>\n\n\n\n