Why Do We Sleep?

Sleep is a great necessity, not a choice in being lazy. As the great Mahatma Gandhi once said “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” One can relate a certain truth in his statement regarding sleep. When humans get a good quality night 's rest they feel rejuvenated, healthy, and alert, but when we do not get enough sleep, we show it through lack of concentration and lack of energy both physically and mentally. But in the way that today 's world moves so quickly, it 's no wonder more and more people are joining the lack of sleep crowd. There are many reasons why we don 't get the sleep our bodies need like environmental impacts, medical conditions, genders, and life stresses. The more aware …show more content…
We should discuss the historical background of sleep to help gain a better perspective on the evolution of sleep research. Based on a timeline article from the National Sleep Institute, it claims phase one which is before 1952 is considered "pre-historic". And during the first half of the 20th century there was insufficient knowledge on the study of sleep. It is stated that most biomedical scientist during this time, suspected that sleep transpired due to overstimulation of sensory stimulation to the brain and body, which left the brain with insufficient energy to carry on. This was referred to as the "passive process theory" …show more content…
In the summer of 1970 Stanford launched the first Sleep Disorder Clinic. The major clinical interest at this time was focused on managing patients that suffered from narcolepsy, they provided diagnostic and treatments for such individuals. In 1972 researchers started shifting focus on a new phenomena of recording respiratory and cardiac data to the all-night observations list. It was during this period of time when scientist discovered a link between day time drowsiness was related to many sleep disorders