Why Do We Sleep
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While we might not often think about why we sleep, many of us admit at certain occasions that sleep is one of the biological processes that we cannot ignore. Essentially, when the body does not get enough sleep, it ultimately forces us to compensate for the sleep lost. We feel more active, happier, alert, and get to function better after a good sleep. Nonetheless, the idea that a night of good sleep makes us feel more energetic and better and lack thereof makes us feel worse, only point why sleep might be essential.
We sleep to prepare us for the rigours of the day. Indeed, there are a lot of activities that we do when we are awake. Apart from the activities that we do consciously, there are many more that we complete subconsciously such as breathing. All these activities require energy which is mostly produced when we get a good sleep at night. When we do not get enough sleep in the night, there is no energy stored in the brain to enable us to recover from the rigours of the previous day. As such, our minds are not fully recharged for the activities of the next. No wonder when we get a good night’s sleep, we wake up more energetic and can accomplish more tasks that an individual who had less or no sleep.
We sleep to avoid various adverse effects associated with not getting enough sleep. One of the effects of getting good sleep at night is weight gain. Our body requires enough time to process the protein leptin, which regulates the rate of metabolism. However, when we are awake, the rate of metabolism is often slow, and we tend to crave for more food. Therefore, it is most likely that we can gain more weight. Besides, not getting a night of good sleep can also result in stress. When you are awake in the night thinking about the problems you go through, you interfere with your sleeping habits. Lack of good night’s sleep can also result in weakening of the immune system. If you sleep, you will likely avoid catching illness like cold. Not getting adequate sleep makes it difficult for our body to fight diseases. Another worst effect of not getting adequate sleep is the dysfunctional brain and memory. Inadequate sleep can impair several functions of our brains, such as information processing. To avoid all these adverse effects, we must sleep.
We sleep to enable our body to restore what is lost while we are awake. Good night’s sleep provides our body with the opportunity to repair and rejuvenate itself. Furthermore, the restorative function of sleep may be as a result of enhanced elimination of potentially toxic materials that accumulate in the body, especially in the awake central nervous system. Our brain cells produce a lot of waste materials while functioning normally. During sleep, there is an increased fluid flow in the brain. This flow acts as a waste disposal system, cleaning our brain of these waste materials. Therefore, when we get enough and good sleep, our brain can eliminate a lot of waste product. This restorative function of the brain further explains why it is essential to sleep.
One way through which we can see sleep as a fundamental biological process is comparing it to other life-sustaining processes, such as eating.