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?

Question

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

Answer 1

I’m actually just going to ádrese the part of your question about why we sleep so much.

The fascinating thing is that we don’t actually sleep that much. When you compare the sleep habits of humans vs other mammals, we sleep comparatively little.

As we evolved and developed more complicated social structures that allowed for greater security and the ability to sleep on the ground, we also started having deeper sleep. This means that unlike our tree dwelling relatives or animals that needed to be on high alert to avoid being eaten we could actually get a better rest in less hours.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160121-the-strangest-thing-about-human-sleep-is-that-we-need-so-little