What does a healthy night’s sleep really look like?

What do you imagine a good night’s sleep to be?

Often when people come into our sleep clinic seeking treatment, they share ideas about healthy sleep.

Many think when their head hits the pillow, they should fall into a deep and restorative sleep, and emerge after about eight hours feeling refreshed. They’re in good company – many Australians hold the same belief.

In reality, healthy sleep is cyclic across the night, as you move in and out of the different stages of sleep, often waking up several times. Some people remember one or more of these awakenings, others do not. Let’s consider what a healthy night’s sleep looks like.

Sleep cycles

As an adult, our sleep moves through different cycles and brief awakenings during the night. Sleep cycles last roughly 90 minutes each.

We typically start the night with lighter sleep, before moving into deeper sleep stages, and rising again into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the stage of sleep often linked to vivid dreaming.

If sleeping well, we get most of our deep sleep in the first half of the night, with REM sleep more common in the second half of the night.

Adults usually move through five or six sleep cycles in a night, and it is entirely normal to wake up briefly at the end of each one....

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