Tuesday, April 6, 2010

what is the purpose of sleep?


It is now 1:18 AM and I can’t seem to sleep. It’s a known fact that us college student need sleep, according to me that is.
You ever wonder what “sleep” is or why we sleep at all.


According to the world of physiology it helps our body physically recuperate from a day’s worth of activities, labor and work. But what about our minds and emotional health? How does sleep affect those?


Now, a small group of neuroscientists is arguing that at least one vital function of sleep is bound up with learning and memory. A cascade of new findings, in animals and humans, suggest that sleep plays a critical role in flagging and storing important memories, both intellectual and physical, and perhaps in seeing subtle connections that were invisible during waking — a new way to solve a math or Easter egg problem, even an unseen pattern causing stress in a marriage.
The theory is controversial, and some scientists insist that it’s still far from clear whether the sleeping brain can do anything with memories that the waking brain doesn’t also do, in moments of quiet contemplation. For further detail into this information visit the site http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/10/24/the-purpose-of-sleep/

A question to my audience, why do you think we dream?

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