While reading about variations in sleep patterns amongst people of different ages I was very intrigued. Newborns on average sleep about 6-8 times a day according to the text totaling about 16 hours of sleep a day. This made me think about my current sleep patterns. On average I get about 7 hours of sleep a night. Its amazing that when people are newborns they require so much sleep. Not only do they sleep a lot but the majority of their sleep is spent in REM sleep cycles. As we get older the amount of time we spend in REM sleep cycles decreases. I wake up a lot of the time still feeling tired. This tiredness may be accredited to a lack of REM sleep. The lack of REM sleep although not a direct result of no longer being a newborn baby is interesting. Why we spend less time in rem sleep when we get older may be related to stress in our lives. It may also be attributed to our current health as sickness or injuries may keep us from falling into a deep sleep. Whatever the reason may be it is still something that I feel should be further studied.
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