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

A prof once said the only thing we know for certain about sleep is we do it because we’re tired.

It is quite a mystery with many good ideas but it’s difficult to prove them.