Adaptive Vs Restorative Theory Essay

Ever wonder why we spend a third of our entire lives being seemingly unproductive and motionless? Studies and proposed theories suggest that there are reasons for this, other than simply being lazy and stagnant. Within our 24-hour days, several psychologists strongly recommend that 8 of those hours be devoted to sleep, and unfortunately, many people today compromise those hours to carry out other tasks, which can deal great harm to their bodies. Two popular theories that stand in the science world today that defines our habit of going to sleep are known as the adaptive theory and the restorative theory. The adaptive theory serves primarily as a survival function, as it allows for an organism to keep “out of harm’s way at times when they could be particularly vulnerable” (Why, 2007). This justifies many aspects of what sleep does for us, such as safety from dangers that are difficult to see without the proper sunlight, avoidance of accidents that can be made in the dark, and conservation of energy that would otherwise be ineffectively used in the nighttime. Natural selection has also provided evidence that the adaptive theory is in fact the leading explanation as to why the night time is sleep time. Those that had developed the habit of sleeping at night triumphed over those that chose to travel in the nighttime and consequently, …show more content…
When the body is allowed the recommended amount of sleep at night, it is able to carry out the various functions that are necessary in brain reorganization and repair, such as memory storage, structure reinforcement, and many others. The reason infants require much larger amounts of sleep is because brain plasticity is extremely active at that age, therefore their REM sleep takes far longer than their SWS, further supporting Oswald’s and Horne’s arguments on the roles REM sleep