Eli5: Why does the body thrash around during sleep?
In: Biology
Two reasons mainly. First is that we move at least a little in sleep to redistribute pressure on our bodies so just a few spots aren’t being compressed for 8 hours straight.
The second is the brain is still very much active during sleep, and the brain still controls your muscles even if not conscious. Normally a sort of disconnect or mental block is put in place so you can’t really move your body a whole lot during sleep and dreaming, but this disconnection isn’t perfect.
Your heart pumps blood into arteries but by the time it goes around body and reaches veins there is little force behind the blood to get it back to the heart.
One of the main forces that propagates blood back to heart is muscle movement. Your body logs a lot of things automatically – sitting still and motionless is not ideal for blood pressure and circulation and the brain will always take care of that- even in sleep.
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