Why do we sleep?
Last updated: December 2020
Home > Information & Support > Adults > Sleep Hub >No one really knows why we sleep. It is the mysterious shift in consciousness that our bodies require every day – we can’t survive without it. What we do know is that sleep is not a passive process. During good restorative sleep we grow, make sense of our days and detox.
Sleep is complex. It serves many vital functions – both physically and mentally. It regulates your mood, improves your memory but also maintains health, weight and energy levels.
Getting just one bad night’s sleep can impact how we feel the following day. Immediate effects include poorer memory and reaction times and research shows that repeated changes to sleep patterns can have long term health problems.
In fact, there doesn’t seem to be one biological function that doesn’t benefit from a good night’s sleep.
With no scientific reason, it looks like nature intended for us to sleep. Therefore, it’s important to make sure the sleep you get is of the best quality, which will ultimately benefit your health and wellbeing.
As one sleep scientist said: “If sleep does not serve an absolutely vital function, then it is the biggest mistake the evolutionary process has ever made.”*
*(Rechtschaffen, 1971, p. 88)