The Function of Sleep

Harvard Magazine has released an online article on sleep. Sleep is a normal biological function, some aruged that it is not needed, or is it? This article has a lengthy description why sleep is essiental and it is worth to read if you think sleep is a waste in your daily 24 hours:

… The moral of much sleep research is startlingly simple. Your mother was right: You’ll get sick, become fat, and won’t work as well if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. So make time for rest and recovery. Stickgold likes to compare two hypothetical people, one sleeping eight hours, the other four. The latter person is awake 20 hours a day, compared to 16 hours for the first. “But if the person on four hours is just 20 percent less efficient while awake, then in 20 hours of waking he or she will get only 16 hours of work done, so it’s a wash,” he says. “Except that they are living on four hours of sleep a night. They’re not gaining anything, but are losing a huge amount: you’ll see it in their health, their social interactions, their ability to learn and think clearly. And I cannot believe they are not losing at least 20 percent in their efficiency.”

Yet instead of encouraging restorative rest, many of our institutions are heading in the opposite direction. This fall, for example, Harvard will begin keeping Lamont Library open 24 hours a day, in response to student demand, and Harvard Dining Services has for several years offered midnight snacks. “These are the wrong solutions,” says Stickgold. “This is like the Boston Police Department getting tired of drunk drivers killing people and setting up coffee urns outside of bars. At Harvard there is no limit on the amount of work students are assigned; you can take four courses and have three professors say, ‘This is your most important course and it should take the bulk of your time.’ Students are dropping to four hours of sleep a night, and the University sees it has to do something about it. But the way you deal with students overloaded with work is not by having dorms serve snacks at midnight and keeping the library open all night. Instead, you can cut back by one-third the amount of work you assign, and do that in every course without serious detriment.” …

Deep into Sleep – [Harvard Magazine]