What is sleep, anyway?

by Hanna Marcus

Okay, okay. We started out with a question that you think you might know the answer to. And why wouldn’t you? It should be obvious, right? As a human being, who sleeps every night, you probably have a good idea of what sleep is.

But do you really? Think about that tonight when you lay your head down on your pillow — what exactly are you doing? What happens to your brain, and your body, when you sleep? How does it benefit you and how could you be doing it better?

It might sound strange to say if you’ve never considered it, but sleep is a lot more that just laying down for a few hours a night to rest up. In fact, sleep plays an enormous role in your health and overall well-being. We’re sure you have a pretty vague notion on what sleep is all about, but the truth is, there’s so much more to it than you probably think.

Understanding what sleep is, how it plays into your health, and ways that you can improve your unique sleep patterns and habits can lead to a happier and healthier you. Interested? We thought you might be. Check out our guide below to get a more concrete idea about sleep, what it means to sleep well, and how you could improve your own health just by switching up a few sleep habits.

Read on!

Let’s Dive Under the Covers: What Exactly is Sleep?

Most adults, yourself included, need about 7-8 hours of sleep every single night. Consider how you sleep each night: do you get that many hours? Do you clock in around 5-6? 3-4? How much you sleep, and how you sleep during that time, is important, but to best understand how you can improve and improve your health during your sleep, it’s key to understand what sleep is in the first place.

Sleep is described as a state of being for your body and for your mind that occurs (typically) for a few hours every night. In this state, your nervous system is relatively inactive, your eyes are closed, and your postural muscles are mostly relaxed. Your consciousness? Practically suspended. But you sleep every night – you know all that. Let’s get into what sleep really is.

While you sleep, your body and your brain are recharging. Consider your cell phone or your laptop, if you let either run too long, they’ll fizzle out and lose battery, right? The same thing happens with your body and mind. Think about it. Have you ever been sleep deprived? Remember that time you stayed up all night studying for a midterm (that you should have spent the previous week studying for, but that’s for another time)? The next day you were probably wiped out, both physically and mentally, because you didn’t get enough sleep.

When you sleep, you’re essentially entering an inactive-but-active period where your body is processing, restoring, and strengthening itself. Sleep is even important for solidifying and consolidating your memories. Think about it – when you go through the day, your mind is consistently taking down information. When we sleep, everything we’ve recorded is logged and filed in the appropriate place in our brains. Research shows that after people sleep, they typically can perform better on memory tasks, retain information better, and have much better hand-eye- coordination.

How Does Sleep Affect Your Health?

Now that you have a better understanding about sleep, you’re probably not as confused about the concept of a good night’s sleep effect on your health. Still, we’re happy to go a little deeper into how important sleep is, how it affects your health, and how you improve your sleep to best benefit your health.

First, let’s talk about your brain. As you know, your central nervous system is run by your brain and can pretty much be considered the main highway for your body’s information. During sleep, when you’re resting and inactive, new pathways (think of them like bridges) are formed to help your mind remember all of the new information that you’ve learned. When you deprive your brain of sleep, it can’t do it’s job the right way – and why would it? If you’re tired, your brain is tired, and it won’t perform the way it would if it was fully charged. More than that, your body won’t respond as well to the signals your brain is sending when you haven’t given yourself a proper night’s rest. That means you might operate on a sort-of delay. Your coordination might decrease, you might be a bit clumsier (which means more accidents), and you’ll probably feel pretty crummy.

If you don’t get enough sleep, your whole body feels the effects, too. There are hundreds of ways this is true, but we’ll just get into a few. For starters, your muscles won’t develop the way they’re supposed to. Sleep has huge bearing on your endocrine system. Many people don’t know this, but sleep has a huge impact on hormone production and management, meaning if you’re not getting the sleep you need, your body will struggle to produce the hormones you need to build muscle mass, repair cells, and repair tissue.

Even worse, if you don’t sleep well or don’t sleep enough, your immune system is unable to produce productive substances that fight infections (like cytokines). Sleep deprivation prevents the immune system from building these things up, is less effective at fighting off invaders, and can also increase your risk of developing serious, chronic diseases.

Sleep: The Most Important Part of Your Day

We understand that sleep (though a welcomed break) can be a tough thing to commit to. You’re busy, you have a lot to do, and often, it doesn’t seem like there are enough hours in the day. Sometimes, you might want to skip the proper amount of sleep just to keep going. However, it’s important to remember that sleep is so much more than just shutting your eyes and taking a rest. It’s vital for your health and well-being.

Tonight, before you fall asleep, reflect on this article and consider all the work your body has done throughout the day – remember, while you’re recharging, your mind and body will still be at work. Treat your body and your mind right and get the proper sleep you need!