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Here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by sleep spindles 9 out of 10

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doctors recommend sleeping beauty stay far far away from them okay here's the [Sleeping beauty screams at sleep spindles]

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question sleep spindles are common in which stage

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of sleep all right and here are potential answers alright we're in a

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theater here.....

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alright first things first if a sleep spindle isn't a magic green glowing

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wheel then what is it well it's actually a burst of rhythmic brain activity

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generated in the thalamus and it's believed to represent brain activity as

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it attempts to block out potential causes of being awoken in an effort to [Boy sleeping on desk]

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allow the body to enter a deeper sleep kind of like hiding under your covers

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when your mom yanks your curtains open kind of don't quote us on that

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alright with that knowledge in mind we can safely eliminate stage one which is

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the lightest form of sleep and one from which we can be easily awoken and that

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annoying sense of falling that suddenly jerks you awake yeah that's here too [Sleeping beauty suddenly wakes up]

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this stage last five or ten minutes and contains no sleep spindles it also makes

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us look pretty dumb at sleep overs from there we enter into stage two this

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stage of sleep lasts about 20 minutes the body temperature begins dropping and

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the heart rate slows down all in preparation for a deeper sleep well if [Heart rate monitor appears]

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this sounds like the perfect time for sleep spindles to make their appearance

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then you'd be right this is when the body really wants to gear down for the

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long haul and sleep spindles help assure you aren't easily awoken meaning B is

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the correct answer but no one likes a cliffhanger so let's check out the last [Sleeping Beauty hanging from a cliff]

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few stages well next comes stage 3 when deep slow brainwaves known as delta

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waves emerge this is the true transitional period from light to deep

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sleep and stage 4 otherwise known as delta sleep comes next [Stage 4 sign appears]

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lasting for about a half an hour this is when those Delta waves really come out

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in full force it's also

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typically when sleepwalking and bedwetting

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mostly occur it should be called come on not again sleep but we won't go there

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before going into Stage five however the body will usually go back down into

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three and two before then gearing up through the stages once more [Sleeping beauty appears through the sleep stages]

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and then finally launching into REM best characterised by rapid eye movement and

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that's REM not the rock group increased brain activity and dreaming REM sleep is

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easily the most action-packed part of any sleepers night once REM ends the

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body gears back down to stage two before starting all over again and how [Woman sleeping and gears turn]

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convenient because Stage two was our answer all along though stage 2

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sleep spindles doesn't sound quite as action-packed it sounds like a movie

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we'd only watch if Vin Diesel were in it yeah maybe maybe not [Woman walks out of theater]

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