REM sleep circadian alignments

published by G K on Sat, 02/05/2011 - 01:08
English

Data are just from a couple weeks, but it looks that no matter when I go to sleep REM cycles (in yellow) tend to align with clock time. Graph starts at GMT 0 for each row that represents a day. Green is wake, blue is sleep, darker the deeper. Yellow is REM.

 

For those of you who have more data, do you notice something similar?

REM alignment

Steve@Zeo's picture

Steve@Zeo

Thu, 02/17/2011 - 06:35

Hey smejmoon,

What you're finding is pretty much what sleep science would expect. REM sleep is primarily regulated by our circadian rhythm, that is, basically, the time of day. This is opposed to Deep sleep which is regulated by the "sleep homeostat" - this just means that how much Deep sleep we get depends on how much sleep pressure we're experiencing which is largely dictated by how long we've been awake.

 

I actually haven't looked at my own data lined up by clock time yet, but I've been meaning to for a long time. Hopefully, I'd find the same results you did.