Eli5: Why do we need to sleep so much, what happens in the body when asleep that cannot happen while normal resting or relaxing? Or is it just for the brain?

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Eli5: Why do we need to sleep so much, what happens in the body when asleep that cannot happen while normal resting or relaxing? Or is it just for the brain?

In: Biology

32 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to leave a note explaining why the post was locked (and also one of you asked us to). I know its a never popular decision. We lock posts like this for 2 main reasons:

1. A mass influx of rule breaking comments. We don’t allow anecdotes/jokes/off topic comments at top level as we are a rather strict subreddit. I do appreciate that you cannot see removed comments so the remaining content does not give that impression and that bit you will just need to take on faith (sorry).
2. A sudden influx on medical advice adjacent information. That’s information advising or otherwise actionable medicinal actions. We are extremely sensitive about anything which could cause someone to enact a physiological change on their body based off the advice from internet strangers (there are 13 year olds on this site).

I again know it is not fun but I do hope you enjoy the information learning that still remains. If you have any questions you can always message us in mod mail or if you have a suggestion for the sub you could use r/IdeasForELI5 which is our suggestion box

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