Do you often feel mentally tired when you're physically well-rested?

Believe it or not, you might not be getting enough of a particular stage of sleep called REM sleep.

REM sleep is vital to repairing the body and the mind.

So in this video, I'm going to walk you through why REM sleep is so important, how to get more of it, including my all-time number one tip on improving REM sleep.

Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Michael Bruce, The Sleep Doctor.

First, let me explain what REM sleep is and why you even need it.

There are many ways sleep benefits your health, but it doesn't happen all at once.

Your body tackles that important work in stages.

The first three are considered non-REM sleep.

The first non-REM stage is fairly short.

Here, your breathing and heartbeat slow down, your temperature drops, and it usually lasts only like one to five minutes.

Stage two is considered light sleep as well, and it occupies the largest percentage of total nightly sleep.

And it usually lasts 25 to 60 minutes in that first stage.

Next up is the third stage, also called slow-wave sleep.

That's when your deepest sleep happens, and when many restorative functions takes place.

This lasts for somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes, again, in that singular stage.

Now the fourth stage, REM sleep, looks very different than the others.

As you probably know, REM stands for rapid eye movement.

First, brain activity during REM sleep is similar to what we see when a person is, believe it or not, awake.

Like I said, very, very active.

Believe it or not, you burn more calories in REM sleep than you do anything else.

Because of this striking similarity to the waking or thinking brain, it's sometimes referred to as paradoxical sleep.

Second, dreams are more likely to occur in REM sleep and may be longer and more vivid.

Sleepers also experience elevated vital signs during REM sleep, including heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing all become faster and more irregular.

What's more, when in REM sleep, your body actually becomes temporarily paralyzed with only occasional muscle twitches.

This is so that you don't act out your dreams.

Now, REM sleep contributes to three important cognitive functions.

REM sleep helps with forming memories and acquiring knowledge.

Number two, the organization also happens with emotions, right?

So REM sleep allows the brain to process emotions and plays a part in your overall mental health.

And then three, REM sleep also helps clear out the clutter of the waking day's accumulated learning and information, a kind of refresh button for your brain.

As you can see, REM sleep is vital to your cognition, vital to your memory, and vital to your emotional well-being.

The first period of REM usually starts about 90 minutes after the person falls asleep.

And believe it or not, it only lasts around three to five minutes.

But REM sleep cycles increase in length with every cycle.

With the longest, most impactful stretches of REM sleep taking place closer to the morning time.

So very early in the morning.

So if you aren't getting both quantity and quality sleep you need, especially later into the night, you can miss out on a whole bunch of this restorative REM sleep.

All right, so how do you know if you're getting enough REM sleep?

Well, number one, you could use a tracker, a watch, things like that.

These all actually are very, very helpful at times to be able to understand.

I personally use an Oura Ring, and it's very, very helpful for me to look at those numbers.

Now, what do you do if you don't have a sleep tracker?

Well, to be fair, you need to ask yourself a few questions as you wake up in the morning and seeing if you're feeling as rested as you should.

So when you wake up in the morning or throughout the morning day, are you feeling forgetful?

Are you feeling moody?

And can you remember your dreams?

All of those can be signs or symptoms that you might have less REM sleep than you really want.

All right, so how do you go about getting more REM sleep?

Well, let's start by talking about some of the things you may be doing during the day that could be hurting your REM sleep at night.

The first thing that could be hurting your REM sleep at night is not getting enough sunlight exposure in the morning time.

Getting exposure to sunlight in the morning can help your sleep at night because it helps reset your body's internal sleep clock.

Remember, light is an important cue for your body's sleep cycle.

The light you're exposed to during the day helps your body figure out when it's time to go to bed and when it's time to wake up.

This can improve both your sleep quantity and sleep quality, which both help you get more REM sleep.

Next, make sure to limit your caffeine intake.

I can't express this enough.

Caffeine can stay in your bloodstream for up to eight hours and if you're a slow metabolizer, maybe more.

So not only can too much caffeine make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep, but research also suggests that too much caffeine specifically hurts REM sleep.

So if you drink caffeine, make sure to limit the amount you drink and stop drinking by 2 p.m., then eventually stop by 12, and then eventually, hopefully, stop by 10 o'clock in the morning.

Another thing that can greatly damage REM sleep is alcohol.

While alcohol might make it easier to fall asleep, it reduces REM sleep and can also cause fragmented sleep in general.

If you're going to drink, keep the amount limited to one to two drinks per day and stop them at least three hours before bed.

Another nighttime substance that can hurt REM sleep is cannabis.

Like alcohol, while it may provide some sedative effect that can initially help you fall asleep, it prevents you from getting the benefits that REM sleep later in the night can provide.

This is specifically about THC, as CBD has not shown to cause an effect on sleep architecture.

Sugar also can have general negative effects across all stages of sleep.

And while sugar most negatively impacts your slow wave sleep or stage three sleep, a recent study found that a high fructose diet can also impact REM sleep.

So be aware of all the sugar that you're eating.

Here's another one that's really interesting.

There's a recent study showing that prebiotic foods can help with REM sleep.

Prebiotics are present in foods that are high in fiber and resistant starches.

So things like whole grains, barley, rolled oats, whole wheat, even wheat bran, onions, asparagus, and even leeks can be very helpful.

Next, let's talk about your bedroom environment.

So lots of people use aromatherapy to get REM sleep, but here's the problem.

What you don't want to do is light a candle because remember, fire and sleep don't mix.

So if you want to use aromatherapy, you want to use some type of a plug-in or maybe a sachet.

I personally like to use a pillow spray, but for people who don't wash their hair in the morning, the pillow spray can get onto your hair and then you smell like lavender all night long.

Blackout curtains or an eye mask can also help with promoting better sleep overall.

Plus, a recent study found that participants who sleep with an eye mask showed enhanced episodic memory encoding and alertness the following day, which suggests that specifically REM sleep benefited.

So get those eye masks and stick them on.

Another thing that you can try is a weighted blanket.

Weighted blankets use deep pressure stimulation, which is thought to stimulate the production of a mood-boosting hormone called serotonin.

This reduces the stress hormone cortisol and increases levels of melatonin, the hormone that helps you sleep.

This may improve your sleep overall as well.

Also, the temperature of your room can have a big impact on REM sleep.

Since your brain is so active during REM sleep, it loses the ability to thermoregulate or maintain your body's core temperature.

Therefore, it's even more important for your bedroom environment to be an ideal temperature for sleeping.

People think a warmer room is better, but actually it's not.

You want a cold room between 65 and 70 degrees is best.

But don't go too low because then you can't move around and create friction and your body will actually pull you out of REM sleep.

Finally, the most important tip that I can give people for getting more REM sleep is to make sure that you are going to bed at the right time and waking up at the right time based on your chronotype.

You know I'm a big fan of chronotypes, but for REM sleep in particular, this is critical.

Consistency is the key.

Having a regular routine is important and doing it based on your chronotype will allow you to know when to wake up and not cut off that last longest REM period.

If you want to figure out what your personal chronotype is, do me a favor, go take my sleep quiz at sleepdoctor.com.

Finally, lowering your heart rate before bed can be an excellent way to prepare your body for sleep and improve your REM sleep.

The best way to do this is with some breathing exercises

I've developed that specifically help with sleep.

So check those out in the video right here.

This is Dr. Michael Bruce, the Sleep Doctor, wishing you sweet dreams.