We know that not getting enough sleep can cause deliriousness and that sleep is needed for effective brain function-
But why?
In: Biology
Think of your brain as a warehouse.
When you’re awake, pallets of information and memories get unloaded, stored, and removed. However, this is a messy process. In the middle of all this scramble, things get misplaced, forklifts run into other goods, and the warehouse gets messier and messier.
When you sleep, the normal work crew clocks out and the evening cleaning shift comes in to tidy things up. Fallen goods get placed back on the shelves. Fresh memories get moved so they are more easily accessable or to long term storage. And the warehouse aisles are cleaned to be ready for a new day.
If you don’t sleep, the warehouse starts out messy. It takes longer for your brain to do anything because the workers have to avoid all the spilled goods. Other things may not be organized so it takes longer to find the relevant information. Things that you crammed when you pull an all nighter are precariously stuffed on the shelves rather than safely placed in long term storage.
To a five year old, I would say It is part of your car’s needs. If you run out of gas (energy), you must refuel (sleep), or all the parts of the car stop functioning well (body and mind) and eventually shut down.
To rephrase the question, what happens while you sleep. Its easier of you take a neuroscience program for a couple of years somewhere, but the gist of what I know so far is: at night memory consolidation into the cortex occurs so your hippocampus empties up for accepting new information the next day; also some cleaning of toxic waste with CSF; and at every step there is something we dont know yet.
There is an entire course for sleep mechanisms at my university its not a topic for a 5yo
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