I’ve always been curious as to how the body seems to heal different issues primarily during sleep, for example I’ve had a few sebaceous cysts in my life and they’re always noticeably smaller when I wake up whereas while I’m awake I can’t generally tell if anything has happened at all. Or even say the dentist, had a few wisdom teeth pulled one tike and each consecutive day after sleep the pain / swelling has been reduced drastically.
I also have RA and most of the pain / swelling is always gone or reduced in the morning compared to the previous day / night ? In some sense it’s almost like my disease has been ‘reset’.
In: Biology
There was a great book on this a few years ago, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. I haven’t read it yet, but it was hugely popular and influential, and as you might guess from the fact it’s a book and not an article: a LOT happens when we sleep.
I know less about the physiology, so maybe someone else can speak to that, but neurologically, it’s when your brain does its housekeeping and bookkeeping, basically. If when you went to bed, the day’s events were a big messy pile of papers on the table, during sleep is when your brain sorts through them all, throws out the junk mail, files away the important stuff (memory formation), even noodles on some of the unsolved items (REM sleep).
FYI insomniacs, meditation replicates many of the beneficial wave states and activities of sleep, so if you’re not sleeping well, try a few minutes of simple meditation if you can. Bonus: It’ll also potentially help you sleep better later.
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