Man sleeping. source: google image(free to share)
We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, and it is considered as an activity as crucial to our health and well-being as eating. Sleep makes us improve our mood and feel more energized. However, there are a lot of unknown information and things going on while we are at rest.
First, what is going on while you are asleep? When we’re sleeping, neurons in the brain fire nearly as much as they do while we are awake. That means whatever happening during our sleeping hours is quite important to a number brain and cognitive functions.
These are some reasons why you need enough sleep and they describe what our brains do while we are asleep – and it suggest you to get some shut-eye tonight.
1. Rememers / Learns how to perform physical activities.
Your brain stores information into a long-term memory in sleep spindles, which signal processes that refresh our memories. This process help storing information specifically related to physical tasks, such as sports, driving, and dancing. These short-term memories are transferred from the motor cortex to the temporal lobe, where they become long-term memories.
2. Create and strengthen memories
Location of hippocampus in the brain source: wikipedia common
While you are asleep, the brain keeps forming new memories linking them from old ones to more recent memories. This process happens during both REM and non-REM sleep periods. Lack of sleep can cause a significant effect on the hippocampus, and affect in memory creation and consolidation. Due to this fact, all nighter would lose their ability to learn new study materials.
3. Decision making
Decision making: where to go sources: google image( free to share)
The brain can process information and prepare for actions during sleep. A recent study found that the brain processes complex stimuli while we are asleep, and utilize this information to make some decisions while we are awake.
4. Clears out toxins
Research at the Univiersity of Roschester found that during the sleep, the brains of mice flush out damaging molecules associated with neurodegeneration, which could potentially have the effect of accelerating diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Therefore, our brains would not have enough time to flush out toxins if we do not get adequate time of sleep.
Parkinson’s disease effect on various parts of brain. sources: google image(free to share)
Why do we need sleep? and What is going on in our brains during the sleep?
Jack Yoon
