I mean what kind of super advantage do we have by spending the night when its already hard to see shit, god forbid potential Predators, unconscious?
In: Biology
I think it’s all about energy management, for example they say that to build muscles, rest is important, meaning your body will direct all of its energy repairing and reinforcing your muscles while you sleep.
Another thing is blood production, you’ll gonna need a lot of energy to produce new batch of blood.
And last example, if you eat too much you will feel sleepy, because your body wants to focus all your energy digesting that food you ate.
Numerous studies have been done on this, over many decades. And from those we’ve found that the only really well supported, solid reason for why we sleep is because we get tired.
As far as we can tell, it’s a physiological requirement of having a brain. Sleep is essential because it regenerates our brain and allows a whole host of regenerative functions to take place around the body.
You’re correct- sleeping puts any animal at a disadvantage against predators (and in the case of some marine animals, drowning). That’s why some animals have evolved the ability to sleep with one brain hemisphere at a time- remaining conscious and alert throughout. Human never developed this ability presumably because it never was advantageous to our tree-dwelling ancestors.
Because all animals need sleep and if rather sleep when I cant see anything than miss the time that I can see to go look for food
Sleep is essential for good health. In fact, we need sleep to survive — just like we need food and water. So, it’s no wonder we spend about one-third of our lives sleeping.
Many biological processes happen during sleep:
The brain stores new information and gets rid of toxic waste.
Nerve cells communicate and reorganize, which supports healthy brain function.
The body repairs cells, restores energy, and releases molecules like hormones and proteins.
A lot is still unknown about the purpose of sleep. However, it’s widely accepted that there isn’t just one explanation for why we need to sleep. It’s likely necessary for many biological reasons.
You pretty much answered your own question.
What is so important that it’ll shut you down and paralyze you for one third of your day while there are predators out there just waiting for their chance to get you?
Whatever it is it must be really important.
The answer is that we don’t really know. One of the more excepted hypothesis is it’s a way of cleaning up the toxic byproducts made in our brain. Btw babies seem to sleep for different reasons than what older people do.
There are some more recent studies concluding that synapses/neurons may become overstimulated when they continually fire over longer periods of time, as in time frames beyond normal periods of wakefulness. Basically the signals cannot be interpreted properly anymore or can cause difficulty deciphering essential messages, leading to brain fog and other issues.
Latest Answers