1. When you go to sleep, you don’t realize it. There’s no moment when you’re lying in bed and you know you’re about to fall asleep, and even after you wake up, you can’t remember what you were thinking about right before conking out. Why?
2. How do our brains know when to wake up? What chemical reaction is finishing that makes the body realize that it doesn’t need any more sleep?
In: 7
Brain is tired, brain gets weak, memory is made by brain, brain doesnt care about memory, brain rests.
Brain is rested, brain must work for body to live, brain gets up.
No idea what chemical reaction is involves but theres the literal ELI5.
1. This has a false premise. It is possible to train oneself to know when you’re about to fall asleep. Overall, however, the brain goes into a different mode due to various cyclic chemical changes (melatonin hormone being one example) and doesn’t need to have a memory of falling asleep. Your awareness merely shifts from being aware of your waking surroundings to being aware of whatever random thoughts your brain is generating in its nightly routine of sorting and organizing memories.
2. When the brain is done with what it needs to do, or if there is a physiological need that is becoming urgent (hunger, low blood sugar, having to pee, distraction of a loud noise, etc.) then you wake up.
Plenty of people remember when they fell asleep because they may have lymnic jerks or be woken before they fall asleep properly. Your brain makes memories even when you are sleeping because people are able to vividly remember dreams, so your memory process is ongoing even when you sleep.
Our brains don’t go to sleep, the brain sends hormones and signals to the respiratory system and other vital systems that it is time to wind down and go into a resting state. Your heart rate will naturally fall and your breathing is taken over by your autonomic nervous system which is automatically controlled by the brain. During sleep, there are three phases which don’t generally happen in any order. These are Light Sleep, REM (Rapid Eye Movement – associated with dreaming) and Deep Sleep.
Light Sleep is responsible for regulating between REM and Deep Sleep. REM is where you dream and is thought to be a stage where the brain sorts out memories and the happenings of the day. Deep Sleep is thought to be where the brain repairs literal damage and to do this it circulates cerebral spinal fluid over the cortex to help wash away toxins and damaged cells which are eventually released from the body through urination or exhalation.
Once the brain has finished organised your thoughts and memories and learned stuff, and then finished repairing what is damaged, it will then send hormones that make you wake up.
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