Why can’t we go to sleep on demand like how we are controlling other parts of the body?

Question

We can stop breathing when we want to. We can also “tell” our body to do what we want such as moving, holding, typing, etc. So why can’t we just “tell” our brain to go to sleep immediately instead of having to wait for it to fall asleep.

In: 826

Answer 1

For the same reason that, even though I’m capable of running 20mph, I can’t start running at that speed instantly. Similar to how there is a time lag to reach my top speed there is one for your physiological processes to ramp down to reach deep sleep state