The Nuance
Sleep Is the Most Productive Part of the Day
The hours spent sleeping are especially critical for your brain
Every week, the Nuance will go beyond the basics, offering a deep and researched look at the latest science and expert insights on a buzzed-about health topic.
Sleep, you have heard, is essential for human health and development. Newborns and toddlers tend to spend more than half of every day asleep. And while many adults try to get by with less, most people need between seven and nine hours each night in order to perform and feel their best.
While there’s no doubt that sleep is necessary, there’s still a lot about it that befuddles sleep experts. “Despite years of scientific research and studies, we still don’t completely understand why we need to sleep,” says says Dr. Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, a sleep research and professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. “We also still don’t know why we dream.”
What experts do know is that sleep is a surprisingly active and fertile time for the brain. Sleep seems to play a crucial role in helping your brain sort, process, store, and make use of the stuff you encounter during your waking hours.
