What is sleep and why is it needed. Why does a person need sleep? Add your price to the base Comment. Sleep diagram in the framework of visceral sleep theory

The human body, in its principle of operation, is similar to any device. Take the refrigerator, for example. You plug it in, and it works for several hours, emitting uterine growls. But, after a certain time, he falls silent. This does not mean at all that he broke. He's just resting. It is exactly the same with our body. A person is busy all day with something, in a hurry. And closer to the night, fatigue is felt. In order for us to rest and recuperate, nature has created a dream for us. Let's take a look at what sleep is for in this article, and how chronic sleep deprivation threatens.

The consequences of lack of sleep

British scientists have done a lot of research on sleep. A stunning picture opened before them. It turned out that people who always go to bed at 22:00 and wake up at 06:00 (and so throughout their lives) live much longer than those people whose sleep is not on schedule. Let's just think about why sleep is needed.

• You will probably agree with the statement that people who do not get enough sleep are always irritated and quick-tempered. They are significantly more likely to develop cardiovascular disease. Yes, besides, if the body is weakened and worn out, then catching a cold is easy. After all, the protective forces (immunity) do not work.
• If a person does not get enough sleep, then it is quite easy to notice. He certainly has a gray skin tone, dark circles or bags under his eyes. From lack of sleep, wrinkles are also formed. This is due to the fact that the skin is tired and unable to cope with its functions. But if a person slept enough, then a blush plays on his cheeks, a smile sparkles on his lips, and the general state of health is wonderful.
• From time immemorial, people who love themselves have sought to devote as much time as possible to sleep. After all, a healthy, sound sleep is the first guarantee of a good appearance. Sophia Loren and Mireille Mathieu are examples of this.

Sleep duration

Many people will be very interested to know how much time is needed for sleep. Keep in mind that if you fell asleep at two in the morning, got up at six during the whole working week, then you will not be able to sleep off at the weekend. In order for the body to rest and recover, you need to fall asleep and wake up at the same time (let's say you go to bed at 21:00, and get up at 06:00, and so on all week). Scientists have come to the conclusion that people should sleep at least seven or eight hours a day. Moreover, women should spend more time sleeping than men.

Rest rules

In order for the body to have time to rest, certain rules must be followed:

• Stick to a sleep routine. If you try to fall asleep and wake up at the same time for several five days in a row, then on the sixth day the body itself will begin to fall asleep at this time. You will develop a biological alarm clock.
• Don't interrupt your sleep. In order for a person to feel slept and rested, you need to sleep without interrupting sleep for at least six hours. If you tossed and turned all night and woke up several times, then there is nothing surprising in the fact that in the morning you feel overwhelmed and not slept. Keep in mind that if you go to bed during the day, it is likely that you will experience insomnia at night.
• Get ready for bed. Do not drink coffee, strong tea at night and do not watch horror. Stressful situations before bed will also not help you get enough sleep. Try to spend this time in a calm and quiet environment. Having created all the necessary conditions, you will definitely get enough sleep.

With silent steps he comes up to me - the most pleasant of thieves, and steals my thoughts, and I freeze in place ...Friedrich Nietzsche

Every night we all fall asleep and sleep until morning. About 8 hours a day and about 25 years in my entire life. Sleep is vital, moreover, a person must sleep every day and for a sufficient amount of time.

In some cases, we find ourselves deprived of the proper amount of sleep - for example, due to the night shift at work. Even one night without proper rest worsens the state of health, mood and performance. Not sleeping for two, three or more nights in a row is extremely difficult and even more harmful.

The documented world record for lack of sleep is 11 days, it was set half a century ago by a young American, Randy Gardner. By the end of the experiment, the brave natural scientist was in a state of psychosis, suffered from hallucinations and did not remember his name. If a person is not allowed to sleep at all, after about 2 weeks he may die from severe brain damage. Why is sleep needed, what is the reason for its exceptional importance and what is it all about?

What is a dream

It's hard to imagine, but today there is no absolute definition of sleep. If we give an approximate description of the term, then sleep is called a normal physiological state in which a person has a reduced reaction to the world around him and the purpose of which is rest and recovery.

Previously, people had a very primitive idea of \u200b\u200bthe physiology of sleep. They believed that during sleep, the soul leaves the body and travels through the light (the global information field? The astral world?). What she sees during her "journey", the person remembers as dreams. Now we can say with confidence that we do not go into the astral plane in a dream. However, the origin of sleep is still full of mysteries. Humanity is tens of thousands of years old, and during this time we have not figured out what a dream is! Somnology - the science of sleep - emerged only about 50 years ago, and during this time, despite its rather rapid development, it has not yet had time to give answers to questions about the physiology of sleep and its functions.

In fact, only three things are quite obvious.

• The sleeper is in a state of relaxation and almost complete immobility.
• During sleep, a person has limited perception of reality. It is impossible to say that perception is "off" completely: it has been proven that sleeping people can react to smells, and besides, everyone can be woken up by ringing the alarm clock.
• During sleep, amazing cyclical processes occur in the brain that distinguish sleep from wakefulness and other states similar to it: coma, fainting, hypnotic trance.

The subtleties are still unknown to scientists. However, they were able to study the structure of sleep and describe some of the processes occurring in the body while a person sleeps.

Sleep structure

Most people sleep once a day, at night. From the outside, the dream looks rather monotonous, predictable, even boring: a person goes to bed in the evening, closes his eyes and remains in bed until morning. However, in reality, sleep is a very dynamic phenomenon. This has been proven by studying the processes that occur in sleepers in the brain.

It's no secret that the human body produces weak electricity. When the heart, muscles and other organs work, an electromagnetic field is generated. The brain is a particularly active "power generator". Its bioelectric activity changes significantly during the night. The study of this activity using encephalography allowed specialists to learn about the structure of sleep and highlight its cycles, phases and stages.

The usual duration of a night's sleep is 7-8 hours. This period consists of several (4-5) identical "pieces", which are called cycles. Each cycle includes a specific sequence of phases and stages.

After a person falls asleep, he plunges into a phase of slow sleep. Such a dream is called "slow" because during it, the eyes of a person under closed eyelids make slow floating movements.

I stage of slow sleep (sometimes also called drowsiness) occurs immediately after falling asleep. This is the most superficial dream and is easily disturbed; if you wake up a person during stage I of sleep, he often denies that he managed to fall asleep. In time, stage I lasts no more than 5% of the duration of the entire sleep.

II stage of slow wave sleep, during it, specific phenomena appear on the encephalogram of the sleeper - "sleep spindles" and "K-complexes". One recent study has identified their relationship to memory status, although their function is not yet fully understood. In stage II, sleep gradually deepens, although it is still a superficial sleep. Its duration reaches 60% of the total sleep time.

Earlier, in slow sleep, two more deep stages were distinguished - III and IV. However, not so long ago, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine combined them into one - delta sleep, or slow deep sleep. It comes after phase II. At this time, a person's body temperature and heart rate decrease as much as possible, muscle tone decreases, and many important hormones are released. This is the deepest dream, it is most difficult to wake up a person during this period. During delta sleep, the dreamer has his first dreams, and this stage is also the most vulnerable to various disorders. It is with delta sleep disorders that a person experiences sleepwalking, night terrors, enuresis, and sleep conversations.

After the delta sleep comes rEM sleep (REM-sleep, REM sleep stage)... The moment of transition can be determined even if the person is not “connected” to the encephalograph. It is enough just to look at the sleeping person from the side. Rapid eye movements occur during REM sleep. The state of the sleeper's brain at this time resembles that during wakefulness, breathing and heart rate increase. In REM sleep, a person sees the greatest number of dreams, and if you wake him up in this phase, he remembers them very well. In general, however, awakening during REM sleep is almost as difficult as during deep stages of REM sleep.

An interesting feature of REM sleep is that the sleeping person's muscle tone decreases - in fact, he becomes paralyzed. It is assumed that the purpose of this phenomenon is to prevent a person from repeating the movements that he makes in his dreams.

After the end of the stage of REM sleep, the entire "sleepy" cycle ends. The brain is awakened for a short time, and then moves on to the next cycle, which includes an identical sequence of phases.

One cycle takes about 90 minutes. That is why morning awakening most easily occurs when from the moment of falling asleep there is an amount of time that is a multiple of 1.5 hours. A person wakes up on the border of two sleep cycles, when his sleep is most superficial, and it is easiest to go to wakefulness.

Sleep functions

When asked why sleep is needed, everyone will answer: so that the body can rest! But is he really resting?

Yes, in a dream, muscles relax, the rate of metabolic processes decreases, all organs work half-heartedly. But the changes taking place in the sleeping person's brain do not allow us to say that the nervous system is also resting.

There is such an expression: "Change of activity is the best rest." For the brain, sleep is just a change of activity, not relaxation. All night long, work is in full swing in the nerve centers - the brain implements the functions of sleep.

So why should a person sleep?

1. Organs and muscles get a "respite"
2. The body replenishes energy resources
3. In a dream, under the guidance of the brain, the body is "cleaning", the processes of binding and neutralizing toxins are actively taking place. The brain also cleans itself. In 2012, foreign scientists discovered the glymphatic system - a system of microtubules in the brain that opens during sleep and is responsible for removing toxins from the central nervous system.
4. Memorization takes place, the formation of long-term memory, the consolidation of new skills.
5. "Scanning" of the organism is carried out - analysis of the state of organs, as well as elimination of identified problems.
6. The state of immunity improves, since it is during sleep that the most active formation of immunocompetent cells occurs.

Sleep disturbances

A person's sleep can be affected by various internal and external causes. In total, according to the modern classification, there are 89 sleep diseases. The science of somnology studies them.

Among sleep diseases, the most common types of insomnia (10-15% of the population - chronic insomnia, up to 40% - episodic), snoring (one third of adults), obstructive sleep apnea (4-7%), restless legs syndrome. Less commonly, somnologists are faced with other disorders.

There are also diseases that have never been encountered by most doctors - before that they are rare. For example, there is a genetic disorder called familial fatal insomnia. In the entire history of medicine, cases of this disease have been reported in representatives of only 40 families in the world.

In our country, somnology is just beginning to develop. In total, there are about 50 sleep centers, rooms and sleep laboratories in Russia - for comparison, there are about 5,000 of them in the USA.

With various "sleep" disorders, it is better to go directly to a specialist somnologist. They know exactly how to diagnose certain diseases and what to do so that each patient regains the ability to sleep well and soundly.

A person is awake sixteen hours and sleeps only eight. During this process, he sees vivid dreams. But what does a person need dreams for and what are they? Sleep is a process that occurs in living organisms. For human physiology, it is a natural process, a vital need for the human body. It is as important as food. Sleep is a complex brain.

What is sleep?

Sleep is a state of the human body and other living beings (animals, insects, birds), in which the response to external stimuli decreases. Slow sleep is a state after falling asleep, which lasts 1-1.5 hours. In this state, the information received during the day is assimilated and strength is restored.

Why do you need sleep and what stages does it go through?

• At the first stage, the respiratory rate, pulse rate and heart rate decrease, the temperature decreases and spontaneous twitching can be observed.
• In the second stage, the heart rate and temperature continue to decrease, the eyes are motionless, the sensitivity increases, the person can easily wake up.
• The third and fourth stages refer to deep sleep, a person is difficult to wake up, it is at this time that about 80% of dreams are formed. It is also at this time that cases of enuresis, bouts of sleepwalking, nightmares and involuntary conversations occur, but the person is unable to do something about it, and after waking up he may not remember what is happening.

REM sleep

REM sleep - comes after slow sleep and lasts from 10 to 15 minutes. Pulse and heart rate are gradually restored. A person is motionless, and his eyes can make quick movements. It is easy to wake up a person during REM sleep.

What is a dream?

At the time of sleep, changes are observed in the section of the brain and spinal cord. It is a collection of several different phases. A person, falling asleep, goes into a state of slow sleep. It is popularly called drowsiness. After some time, a transition to the second state occurs. It is called "the embrace of Morpheus". The third state is called deep sleep. From the state of deep sleep, a person passes into the fourth state. The fourth state is called sound sleep, it is considered final. It's almost impossible to make you wake up in it.

In the state of slow sleep, the human body begins to produce growth hormone, regeneration of tissues of internal organs and skin begins, and the pulse decreases.

Sleep structure

Sleep structure consists of phases. They are repeated and alternate with each other every night. A person experiences slow and fast sleep during the night. There are five. Each cycle lasts from eighty to one hundred minutes. REM sleep consists of four states:

• In the first state of sleep, a person's heart rate decreases. This state is called drowsiness. At such a moment, a person sees his dreams and hallucinations. In this state, unexpected ideas may come to a person.
• The second state of sleep is characterized by a rapid heart rate. In this state, a person's consciousness is turned off.
• During the third stage it will not be difficult to get the person to wake up. A person at this moment becomes very sensitive to any stimuli. At this stage, human hearing is sharpened. During sleep, a person may wake up from a small noise. The pulse remains that way.
• In the fourth state, a person is in a state of deep sleep. Sometimes the third and fourth are combined into one. This general condition is called delta sleep. At this moment, it is very difficult for a person to wake up. Dreams are often seen at this stage. You may also have nightmares.

The four sleep states take up 70% of the entire process. Therefore, another factor for what sleep is needed and why lies in the recovery of expended resources.

Sleep functions

The function of sleep is to restore vital resources expended during wakefulness by a person. Also during sleep, vital resources accumulate in the human body. When a person wakes up, vital resources are activated.

Performs an informational task. When a person sleeps, he ceases to perceive new information. At this moment, the human brain processes the information accumulated during the day and systematizes it. Sleep has psychological functions. At the moment of sleep, emotions become active in a person. Human coordination becomes passive, immunity begins to recover. When a person sleeps, his mental and emotional state returns to normal. Sleep helps you adapt to different lighting conditions. During sleep, human organs and the entire body system are protected and restored.

Does a person need sleep? Yes, it allows you to solve important and complex problems, includes the protective functions of the body.

Sleep disturbance

Every person has a sleep disorder. Some people cannot get enough sleep, while others, on the contrary, want to sleep during the day. If this does not happen often, there is nothing to be afraid of, but if it happens often, it is already a disease. If this happens rarely, the person does not have big problems.

With frequent disturbances in sleep mode, a person cannot lead a normal life, this indicates that he is sick. Only 10% of people suffering from this come to the hospital for help. The rest are trying to cope with the disease on their own. To do this, they self-medicate. Other people do not pay attention to the disease.

Insomnia as a pathology

Sleep disorders include insomnia. With such an illness, it is difficult for a person to fall asleep, he cannot plunge into a sleepy state. More often, illness occurs due to mental illness, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, drugs, and stress.

Absolute sleep disturbance can be directly related to everyday factors and changes in work schedule.

What are dreams for?

Sleep is good for the human body:

• Eliminates tension in the muscular and nervous system.
• Restores concentration of attention.
• Improves attention and memory at this moment.
• Reduces the risk of heart disease by 49%.
• After sleep, a person becomes energetic, cheerful, there is a desire to engage in creative activities.
• Daytime sleep allows a person to get enough sleep in cases where it cannot be done at night.
• For half an hour of sleep, a person finds answers to the most difficult questions.
• During this time, the brain works intensively and the body is in a relaxed state.
• When he wakes up, he does not feel the nervousness that he had. The person stops developing stress.
• When he wakes up, he feels happy, because by this moment the level of the hormone of happiness in his blood rises.
• Being in a state of dormancy, a person enters a state of meditation, as it were. At this moment, his connection with the outside world begins to break.
• A person has a close connection with the subconscious.
• At this moment, a person has brilliant ideas and unexpected discoveries.

Daytime sleep - benefit or harm?

Daytime rest is typical of a child. Whether adults need sleep is another matter, it all depends on individual characteristics. After sleeping in the morning, a person becomes vigorous, energetic and clarity of mind appears. A little morning nap gives a positive boost during the day. It helps when a person does monotonous work and during a change in the weather. It improves imagination, concentration and attention, which is why many people like to sleep during the day.

But is naps necessary and how important is it? Scientists have been able to prove that it helps in the fight against stress and disease. Supports the regenerative processes in the human body. During sleep, a person becomes younger. Such a dream relieves psychological and muscle tension in a person. This dream allows you to reboot the human body. The result is the debugging of the human body. During the morning sleep, a person finds solutions to his questions. Waking up, a person realizes what the answer to his question is.

It does not always allow the body to recover. It happens that after him a person feels overwhelmed and tired. What is the reason for this factor? A person should not sleep too long during the day, otherwise there will be disturbances in the perception of time.

How much sleep do you need?

People who spend the same number of hours sleeping at night have twice the lifespan of people who have had their sleep to a minimum. For sleep to be of maximum benefit, scientists have found that adherence is an integral part of life. Otherwise, the biological clock goes astray and health problems begin.

Sleep duration will be more productive if you sleep continuously for 7-8 hours. It has been proven that 6 hours of continuous sleep has a beneficial effect on a person's condition than 7-8 hours of interrupted sleep. A person who has awakened after sleep must get used to the regime. In order not to fall asleep again after waking up, you should not lie in bed for a long time, the body quickly adapts to changes.

Doctors recommend: be outdoors a lot, not overeat 2 hours before bedtime, take relaxing baths, try not to sleep during the day, purchase a comfortable mattress and pillow, and maintain a continuous sleep schedule for 7-8 hours. If a person gets enough sleep, then when he loses control over the task, the brain restores attention, but the brain of a person who has not got enough sleep is not fully attentive and focused, and incorrectly perceives the world around him.

Long sleep is considered to be 10-15 hours a day. During such a dream, a person quickly becomes overworked. He has such diseases as obesity, problems with internal organs and blood flow begin, and people are overcome by laziness, apathy, confuse the time of day (day and night).

It is vital to get enough sleep in order to restore the emotional background and physical strength, as well as give the body to renew its strength during and after illness. Each person needs to choose an individual schedule in order to get enough sleep and be vigorous, so there is no definite answer to the question of how much a person needs to sleep.

Absolutely everyone knows that sleep is necessary for a person. If only because everyone has experienced the consequences of not getting enough sleep, especially if you cannot get a good rest for several days. A person becomes lethargic, inhibited and literally turns off on the go. A rather large percentage of serious accidents on the roads occur due to the fact that the driver of one of the cars simply fell asleep while driving. But why does a person need sleep, what is its nature and what happens to the body during this period?

A bit of history

Sleep - what is it? For the first time, attention was paid to such a very unusual state by ancient Greek philosophers. They believed that after falling asleep human soul freed from bodily bonds and can undertake long journeys. She is able to return back to the body thanks to the finest silver thread, which is connected with it. If this thread is broken, death occurs.

Approximately the same ideas about what a dream was during the Middle Ages. They were also mixed with fear of witchcraft, since it was believed that a witch could penetrate someone else's dream, break the thread connecting the soul to the body and steal the soul, or use the body of the former master at will. In the 18-19 centuries it was believed that with the help of sleep one could penetrate into the higher spheres and even communicate with the souls of the dead, but people had not the slightest idea about the very nature of sleep.

A little light on why you need to sleep was possible only at the end of the 19th century, when this phenomenon began to be systematically and purposefully studied by scientists as a biological function of the body. The first experiments were performed on animals and were quite cruel. Russian physiologist Victoria Manaseina deprived adult dogs and their pups of sleep.

Puppies died already on 4-5 days, adults managed to hold out for up to two weeks, but after 6-7 days they were very weak, refused to eat, became practically immobile, not reacting in any way to external stimuli.

So it turned out that sleep is much more important for living organisms than it seemed before.

At the beginning of the last century, experiments with animals passed to the study of humans. Already on day 2-3, people deprived of sleep become very irritable, the reaction slows down, and the appetite disappears. By the fifth day, severe weakness appears, the level of immune protection sharply decreases, all chronic diseases (if any) become aggravated, severe headaches and periodic blackouts appear.

Cycles and phases

The advent of electrical devices in the 1940s and 1950s simplified the task of studying sleep and made it possible to analyze the brain activity of a sleeping person. And then the first surprises awaited the scientists. It turned out that the brain in a dream not only continues to work, but sometimes becomes even more active than in some waking states. Moreover, in the changes in its activity, a clear periodicity was traced.

Scientists divided the entire period of sleep into phases during which certain patterns were traced in the work of the brain. The two main periods, which got their name from the visible movement of the eyeballs under the closed eyelids of the sleeping person, were slow and REM sleep. But upon further research, it turned out that REM sleep has four main phases:

After 20-30 minutes, the brain activity rises sharply and the person enters the REM sleep phase. The eyeballs that had been slowly rotating until then begin to move very quickly, chaotically changing direction. It seems that the sleeper is trying to keep track of something. Indeed, at this moment, a person usually sees a vivid dream, which he can easily retell if he is awakened before returning to the slow phase.

In just one night, a person goes through several such cycles, the total length of which is about 90 minutes. The only exception is the drowsy stage, which the sleeper goes through only when falling asleep.

In the morning, the fourth stage is reduced, and the fast period increases. This is the secret of the fact that a person remembers only the last dream of the night and that not for long - until he is replaced by new impressions.

Biological significance

Having studied what happens to the human body and brain after falling asleep, scientists were able to more or less accurately determine the biological significance of sleep:

Thus, it turned out that while the physical body relaxes, the brain has time to both rest and work hard. And this is the main paradox of sleep, which scientists still cannot solve.

Interestingly, if the brain is forcibly turned off with the help of drugs or potent sleeping pills, then in the morning a person does not feel rested. Moreover, he loses the phase of REM sleep and falls into a "heavy" dreamless sleep, during which there is no attunement of all organs and systems. The person "turns off", but does not recover correctly.

When is the best time to sleep?

But if sleep is so important, and the processes that take place during it are standard, then is it possible to replace night rest with the same amount of daytime rest? It would seem that the answer is obvious - what difference does it make when you sleep your eight hours? But after the very first experiments, scientists were in for a new surprise. It turned out that daytime and nighttime sleep are completely unequal. And the reason for this is the circadian rhythms inherent in the human genetic apparatus.

Circadian rhythms are a kind of built-in biological clock that helps the body determine when to go to rest. They are inextricably linked with light exposure - in the morning the body is more active and ready for work, and in the late afternoon all body functions slow down, and it begins to prepare for sleep.

The special hormone melatonin, which is produced from about 22 to 2 hours, helps in this. If melatonin is not enough, then a person has difficulty falling asleep, since the activity of biological processes is not reduced enough. This is one of the reasons why insomnia often plagues older people.

The production of melatonin is facilitated by a decrease in natural light levels. In our ancestors, it began to be actively produced by the body after sunset, so they went to bed early - at 20-21 o'clock, and got up at sunrise. We use artificial lighting, so it's more difficult for the body to navigate. That is why it is important not to use bright light for an hour or two before bed, but to dim the lighting slightly.

But even if a person is placed in conditions where there are no light fluctuations, he will get up and go to bed at about the same time. Its daily activity will still remain cyclical, but this cycle will lengthen a little and with a long stay without changing the lighting it can stretch up to 30-36 hours.

During the day, melatonin is practically not produced, even if the curtains are tightly closed. Therefore, even if a person has worked all night, he will not be able to sleep more than 3-4 hours during the day, and this is completely insufficient to compensate for the night's rest.

People who constantly work night shifts often suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and various psychosomatic diseases caused by permanent lack of sleep.

However, a short day's rest, no more than 1-1.5 hours, is very useful, especially in the afternoon. Intuitively, this discovery was made by residents of most countries of temperate and hot climates, in many of which siesta is a national tradition - an afternoon rest, during which all shops and businesses are closed, and people are sleeping or just in a relaxed state.

Such sleep improves digestion (and the load on the gastrointestinal tract after a meal, usually consisting of 2-3 dishes, is maximum!), Lowers blood pressure, relieves the cardiovascular system and restores muscle activity.

Therefore, if there is an opportunity for a short rest in the interval from 13 to 15 hours, try to use it. This heals and rejuvenates the body, strengthens the immune system and even increases life expectancy by several years.

Sleep disorders

For various reasons, some people experience various sleep disorders:

All of these disorders must be treated. And often it is not possible to do without the help of a specialist, since they have physiological and psychological reasonswho need to find out, and not just temporarily remove unpleasant symptoms with the help of medications.

Long-term sleep disturbances lead to the development of psychosomatic diseases and mental disorders. The hormonal balance is disturbed, the cardiovascular and nervous systems are overloaded. People with sleep disorders are several times more likely to have heart attacks and strokes, they age faster, and are more likely to be involved in road accidents.

What is sleep? Some consider the need to sleep a waste of time, others, on the contrary, happily go to sleep even during the day, but few people think about what happens when a person sleeps. And in vain. It is necessary to sleep as it is or recover, and lack of sleep leads to serious health problems. To understand the importance of sleep, it is worth considering what happens to people after falling asleep.

When, after severe stress or overwork, yawning begins and even sleeping on the floor seems attractive, then a sure sign that the body needs a "reboot".

During sleep, a person relaxes, consciousness turns off, and important processes take place in the body:

1. Regeneration. The process of tissue repair at the cellular level is most active during sleep.
2. Resting neurons. The active flow of information to the brain stops and part of the brain structure rests.
3. Creation of cause and effect relationships. Probably, many have noticed that in the morning it is much easier to solve complex problems that seemed insoluble last night. This is due to the fact that during sleep on a subconscious level, an analysis of the events that have occurred takes place.
4. Removal of toxins. In a relaxed state, toxins bind more quickly and are prepared for elimination from the body in urine and feces.
5. Replenishment of cell energy.
6. Immunostimulation. Many people know that a tired and sleepy person gets sick faster. This is due to the fact that the immune system can fully replenish its expended resources only when people are sleeping.

Of course, the information offered does not fully answer the question: why do you need sleep, but even scientists studying the sleep process cannot give a full explanation.

To the question: "Why do you need to sleep?" one toddler replied simply, "To dream."

There are many theories about dreams, and some even try to predict their fate based on what they dreamed at night with the help of a dream book. But does it make sense?

Not. Of course, sometimes the meaning found in the book may accidentally coincide with real events, but you should not blindly trust the interpretations.

Dreams reflect the following:

For a person it seems that he went to bed in the evening, closed his eyes, and woke up in the morning. But has anyone ever wondered why it is sometimes very difficult to get up when the alarm rings?

This is due to the fact that when we sleep, 2 phases alternate in the body:

The phases cyclically replace each other and about 5 such alternations are needed for good rest. If you ignore this and sleep less, then the body will be harmed.

Why does a person need a dream? Waste of time! There are other, more important things to do! Sound familiar? Probably, everyone in the environment has a personality with red eyes from lack of sleep, completely focused on a career or making money.

But prolonged sleep deprivation leads to the following:

If insomnia persists for a long time, then hallucinations may appear on the basis of overwork.

Having considered the benefits of good sleep and what attempts to stay awake lead to, perhaps someone will understand the simple truth that a fully rested person will do much more than a workaholic who is tormented by lack of sleep.