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
I only know of several studies relating to the brain that show specifically that sleep is a unique way of resting and metabolic maintenance that cannot be mimicked by other types of rest or sleep. I remembered the studies showed that during sleep the brain is effectively flushed and toxins and built up waste products are removed in that way. This ‘flushing’ did not occur during drug-induced sleep such as with anaesthesia and waste was basically not removed during other states of consciousness.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373
This is a link to one of those studies.
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