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What is a Sleep Cycle ?

The fundamental secret to improve your sleep for good is to understand your sleep cycles and respect the mandatory biological conditions that are required to perform them well ...

Each well performed sleep cycle is a Complete Mini-Sleep.

A sleep cycle is your sleep work-flow unit, so to speak. During one single sleep cycle, you perform the entire program of biologically required sleep activities.

See sleep activity details:   What do I do when I sleep ?

A Sleep Cycle is a complete Maintenance Round on your entire organism.

With completion of a well performed sleep cycle, you have energized, restored, recovered, and healed your body, emotions, and mind in a balanced and harmonized way - one step up.

The process takes you by design about one-and-a-half hours (ca. 90 min.).

The duration is dictated by the way a human organism is built (anatomical blueprint). You cannot alter it by willpower or habituation.

The sleep cycle duration is typical for our biological species. Sleep cycles are timed by our human circadian body clock, which is ultimately governed by the relative position of the sun.

More on Wikipedia:   Circadian Rhythms

Even after a most perfectly performed sleep cycle, having stayed at the sleep job for only 90 min. only once every 24 hrs. is insufficient to re-energize and restore yourself fully.

That is why, after a natural short brake in a near-awake or even awake state, you naturally launch the next maintenance round on yourself. You repeat (cycle) the entire heavy-duty 90 min. sleep cycle process.

You keep repeating maintenance rounds several times during a night with short breaks in-between. With each consecutive sleep cycle you build on the achievements of the previous one, until you have accomplished sufficient biological re-energizing, self-restoration, and self-healing, so that your organism is ready for the next awake period.

Sleep Phases

Since about 3 decades, neurologists and psychologists attempt to discover the "secrets of sleep" e.g. by means of observing brainwaves with EEG technology.

They have categorized 4 differing patterns during a sleep cycle, which they call "Sleep Phases". One of them is called "REM sleep" (REM: Rapid Eye Movement).

These neurological categories, as fascinating as they may be, are of very little practical significance for you. If you'd like to learn more, visit

Wikipedia on  Sleep Cycle

Most Important to Understand

Your Motor System must be otimally functional when awake, so that you can sit, stand, walk, eat, drink, do anything, or talk. In order to service your Motor System, during a sleep cycle, you need to paralyze yourself temporarily.

You need to service the 625 muscles, 240 joints, and 206 bones as well as the contributory nerves, blood vessels, etc. that are part of it.

With your Motor System paralyzed, people and predators can touch you, attack you, and lift you up. You cannot wake up timely. During this phase, you would non-negotiably fall pray e.g. to a fire in your bedroom.

To perform this vital task of a sleep cycle well, you have no choice but to render yourself physically extremely vulnerable and defenceless.

Of all daily activities, which are biologically mandatory to keep yourself healthy and well, performing efficient and optimally restoring sleep cycles is principally by far the most risky activity.

All your life, you are by design always perfectly capable to perform good sleep cycles. Your sleep cycles cannot break or become sick (they are activities).

However, in case of any actual or anticipated danger (e.g. existential or social stress, fears, unsuitable sleep environment, etc.), your brain deliberately never commands any deep sleep cycles. It keeps your motor system activated, so that you remain capable to act quickly in case you'd need to save your life.

In order to perform good sleep cycles, deep inside you must feel safe.

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