About Sleep

The human body cycles through 4 phases of sleep each night:

Nonrapid Eye Movement 1 [N1] (1-7min)

The shortest of the phases, the body is not fully relaxed, and the body and brain are starting to slow down. It is easy to wake someone in this stage, though, if left undisturbed, this stage stays short in subsequent cycles.

Nonrapid Eye Movement 2 [N2] (10-25min)

The body enters a more subdued state, including a drop in temperature, relaxed muscles, and slowed breathing and heart rate. Brain waves show a new pattern and eye movement stops. Though brain activity slows, there are short bursts of activity that actually help resist being woken up by external stimuli. Each subsequent cycle can have a longer N2 phase throughout the night. A person generally spends about half of their sleep time in this phase.

Nonrapid Eye Movement 3 [N3] (20-40min)

Also known as deep sleep, it is harder to wake someone up if they are in this phase. Muscle tone, pulse, and breathing rate decrease as the body relaxes even further. The brain activity during this period has what are known as delta waves. For this reason, stage 3 may also be called delta sleep or slow-wave sleep (SWS).

It is believed that this stage is critical to restorative sleep, allowing for bodily recovery and growth. It may also bolster the immune system and other key bodily processes. Though brain activity is reduced, there is evidence that deep sleep contributes to insightful thinking, creativity, and memory.

Most time is spent in deep sleep during the first half of the night: during the early sleep cycles, N3 stages commonly last for 20 to 40 minutes. As you continue sleeping, these stages get shorter, and more time gets spent in REM sleep instead.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM)

Lasts about 10-60min. This is where vivid dreaming occurs.

During REM sleep, brain activity picks up, nearing levels seen when awake. The body experiences atonia: a temporary paralysis of the muscles, except for the eyes and the muscles that control breathing.

REM sleep is believed to be essential to cognitive functions like memory, learning, and creativity. Dreams can occur in any sleep stage, but this phase is known for having the most vivid dreams, which could explain the significant increase in brain activity. Dreams are less common and intense in the NREM periods.

Under normal circumstances, you don't enter REM sleep until you've been asleep for about 90 minutes. As the night continues, the REM stages get longer, especially in the second half of the night. The first REM stage may last only a few minutes, but the later stages can last for around an hour. REM stages make up around 25% of sleep in adults.

Each phase and stage of sleep includes variations in muscle tone, brain wave patterns, and eye movements. The body cycles through all stages approximately 4 to 6 times each night. The length of each cycle varies, but averages 90 minutes for each cycle. The first sleep cycle of the night is usually the shortest.

Sleep stages are important because they allow the brain and body to recuperate and develop. Failure to obtain enough of both deep sleep and REM sleep may explain some of the profound consequences of insufficient sleep on thinking, emotions, and physical health.

The Program

The included carrier frequencies are:

• 432 hz: Promotes meditation and relaxed states, resonates with the heart chakra
• 136.1 hz: Resonates with the earth year; relaxing, soothing, balancing, harmony with the cosmos, associated with the soul; sedative
• 528 hz: sleep and wellness, stimulate imagination, intention, and intuition, support cortisol reduction, lifting mood
• 111 hz: Beta-endorphins, cell regeneration
• 90 hz: Good feelings, security, well-being, beta-endorphins, serotonin

The beat frequencies used are:

1. 7 hz: Treatment of sleep disturbances
2. 4.9 hz: Induce relaxation, meditation, deeper sleep
3. 3.4 hz: Sound sleep
4. 1.5 hz: Abrahams Universal Healing Rate, Sleep

Intention

For the maximum effect, it helps to focus your intention on your desired outcome. For this track, less is actually more here: we want to actually defocus our intention, to let it rest. To that end, it helps to focus on our breathing, which should be slow, deep breaths, but not much deeper than a normal breath. When you find yourself focusing on any other thoughts, gently release that thought and bring your focus back to your breathing. Start at the top of your head and move down, relaxing the muscles in each section of your body with each breath. Relax the muscles in your face, in your scalp, in your neck and shoulders, in your chest and abdomen, in your arms, in you hands, in your legs, in your feet. Let your focus naturally drift off as you fall asleep. The goal is to consciously ferry your body quickly through N1, but do not force it. If you find yourself struggling to relax, simply stop the visualization and just listen to the track.