REM sleep is paradoxical because: a. the brain is active, but the major skeletal muscles appear to be paralyzed b. the skeletal muscles remain active, but the brain is inactive c. the brain is less active than it is during other sleep stages d. both the brain and the body are inactive

The correct answer is letter A

Sleep starts right away when we close our eyes (phase 1), but we go through several phases until we reach REM sleep, which means “rapid eye movement”. This sleep is the most difficult to achieve, as it is a deeper stage, when the body can really relax. The stages prior to it are called non-REM.

REM is the last stage of the sleep cycle, which lasts about 20 minutes each and that's where dreams happen. At that moment, our heartbeat accelerates and so-called “sleep paralysis” occurs, as the brain blocks motor neurons so that the body does not reproduce the movements that occurred in dreams.

The total REM sleep time decreases according to the person's age, that is, the younger, the more REM sleep time. A newborn, for example, sleeps more than 80% of his sleep in the REM phase. An elderly person presents only 10% of his sleep at this stage.

REM sleep is extremely important for health, as this phase is characterized by intense brain activity. It is when we produce several fundamental hormones for our organism and retain new learnings in our memory, for example. Therefore, it is essential that sleep is not interrupted until it reaches this stage.

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