Question: Why do we sleep?

Jess Wade answered on 22 Jun 2015:

Hey Ge Ni U S-

Fab! This is basically what everyone wants to know. There are lots of scientific theories, and they are all pretty weird. We essentially become paralysed at the end of the day.

What we know is that our bodies need sleep, and treat it like we need to eat, drink and breathe. If we didn’t eat we wouldn’t get any of the nutrients we need to grow, repair tissues or function. We think that it is because we need our bodies and brain to rest and recharge after the day’s we’ve had. Scientists did some tests on rats, and think that they strengthen mainly during their sleep. We think that it is a really important time to process memories and learn from the days we’ve had- process all the new information. We also get rid of all of the rubbish that we didn’t need- all the trivial memories we didn’t need to learn anything about. We obviously also need to conserve energy- everything slows down. We don’t need to regulate our body temperature as much or consume as much energy as we do to stay awake.