Generally, sleep gets a bad reputation.
Any alien visiting Earth will find that every animal goes into a non-moving state everyday. In this state, the animal seemingly stops all activity and seemingly, DOES NOTHING! What a dumb thing to do.
By the cold logic, sleep should have been evolved out of all animals. Humans with their big brains and towering intellects, are slaves to something as vulgar as SLEEP. Is Sleep necessary or is it just a vestige of some mutation gone wrong? When we sleep, we
- Can get killed
- Can’t forage for food
- Can’t look for a mate
- Can’t care for offspring
- Can’t work!
Given such clear disadvantages for Sleep, WHY DO WE SLEEP? And what happens when we don’t? These are the 2 questions that I intend to answer based on a short project that I undertook to learn all I can about sleep.
I learnt that Sleep is the coolest thing! When we sleep, we are re-born every time. Maintenance, repairs and servicing of each of our cells, tissues, muscles and organs takes place. Memories get strengthened and our brain finds connections between old and new memories. The brain also cleans itself during sleep. The hormones that control metabolism get regulated and when we wake up, we are a fresher, but intelligent copy of the person who slept the earlier night.
Sleep is the best anti-ageing secret in the market. Nobody seems to believe it!