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
Our bodies are made up of tiny workers called cells. Every little worker makes a bunch of trash as they work: scraps from building things, trash from packages, smoke from burning energy, and other junk.
Usually, the workers dump the trash into a river called the bloodstream. This works great… Except sometimes zombies come from the river and make the workers into more zombies. These zombies are bad cells like bacteria or viruses.
There are some important workers that control all the other workers. These boss workers are called brain cells. These bosses are so important, that they aren’t next to the river. It would be too dangerous to let the brain cell workers be attacked by zombies.
So, without the river, how do brain cell workers dump their trash? Basically, every day the workers stop working and instead spend their time carrying trash to a special fence. They can throw the trash over the fence into the river, but zombies can’t get through the fence. This cleaning time is called “sleep”.
While the boss cells are cleaning, the other workers cells aren’t doing as many things since they aren’t getting commands. They can do basic things like eat and do some general repairs, but they aren’t working together and as active as when the bosses are telling them what to do. This is why we don’t move as much when we are asleep… The boss cells aren’t giving as many commands, they are busy cleaning.
Tldr: The normal cells in you body work 24/7 and just chuck trash on the river. But the river is also dangerous and has zombies. Your brain cells are fenced off from the river to stay safe. Instead, they work a 16 hour shift, then close for 8 hours to clean and carry trash all the way to the fence to chuck it into the river. The clean up time is called sleep.
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