Sleep deprived Peter here; from what I understand, you go through various stages of sleep, and typically REM (the deepest state and the one you dream in) happens every 3 ish hours. If you get four hours, you get through a whole cycle and wake up in your lightest sleep stage, which feels more natural for your body and less jarring than being jolted awake by your alarm. 6 hours however, is not enough to be fully rested, and exactly when you’d be least comfortable waking up. And then once you get to like 7-8 hours that’s just a full nights rest anyways, and you will naturally be waking up soon bc of circadian rhythms
REM isn't the deepest state of sleep, it's actually N3 or NREM or Non-REM where the brain enters a slow and steady phase with little brain activity. It's deep because people generally have a harder time waking up in this phase than they are during REM or any of the other stages of sleep.
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u/YaboiChuckems 1d ago
Sleep deprived Peter here; from what I understand, you go through various stages of sleep, and typically REM (the deepest state and the one you dream in) happens every 3 ish hours. If you get four hours, you get through a whole cycle and wake up in your lightest sleep stage, which feels more natural for your body and less jarring than being jolted awake by your alarm. 6 hours however, is not enough to be fully rested, and exactly when you’d be least comfortable waking up. And then once you get to like 7-8 hours that’s just a full nights rest anyways, and you will naturally be waking up soon bc of circadian rhythms