Experts weigh in on the importance of sleep

How does sleep impacts the body? How much sleep do we need? How does an ensemble of neurons affect sleep? The experts answer.

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A third of our entire lives are spent sleeping. But why do we sleep? Why is it so important for our body and the mind? Experts have spent decades decoding the mechanisms of sleep and how it impacts our bodies. When we don’t get adequate sleep, it impairs our circulation, digestion, immune system, and most importantly, the way our brain functions. When we don’t sleep for a long time, we can also die. 

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Steven Strogatz, noted mathematician, author, and host of The Joy of Why, spoke in his podcast with Dragana Rogulja, an assistant professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and Alex Keene, a neurogeneticist at Texas A&M University, about the need for sleep and how it influences our body and how it functions.

Dragana, who studied the effects of sleep deprivation in fruit flies, stated that sleep is the time when the body disconnects from everything. It comes to a halt and loses consciousness. As a result, the body begins to relax. When discussing the significance of sleep, Dragana stated that, while it is observed as a relationship with the brain, it is much more than that. She stated, in reference to her animal studies, that animals have a basic nervous system and that sleep is more of a semantic issue. A variety of other body parts can also influence sleep. It was also discovered that when animals or insects are deprived of sleep for an extended period of time, they die instantly. This reveals a link between survival and sleep deprivation.

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Alex Keene, who studied Mexican cave fishes to better understand sleep mechanisms, believes that sleep is generated by a complex ensemble of neurons. As a result, it is not something that can be localized to a single cell. He also stated that the patterns and durations of sleep in animals and humans change in response to the need for food. Hunger causes them to want to go in search of food, reducing their sleeping time. Sleep is also affected by ageing and stress. As a result, the genes involved in sleep differ depending on the situation and condition. The ecology of animals influences the amount and duration of sleep required by an animal or a human.