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Khris Thammavong

Ms. Oberg

English 11

23 January 2018

Why do people need to sleep?

My I-Search topic is on sleep and why people have the need for it. I wanted to know why

people actually have a physical need for sleep. I also wanted to know how sleep is advantageous

from an evolutionary perspective and why our ancestors evolved the ability and/or need for

sleep. People spend about a third of their life asleep so I just wondered if it was worth using that

time for just sleep. I knew before that during sleep your body undergoes some self-repairing

processes such as repairing tissues. I also knew that if somebody hasn’t slept enough their

immune system begins to weaken and they get sick easier. Other than that, I do not know why

people actually feel the need to sleep and how it benefits us.

As I went along with the research of this topic I came across an article about various

sleep disorders from an evolutionary perspective and it was actually pretty fascinating. These

disorders, that are usually bad for our modern society, could have been somewhat helpful for our

ancestors. For example, insomnia isn’t the best thing to have nowadays due to there being no real

reason to be alert or awake for extended periods of time. However, ancestors that had to deal

with the pressing threat of predators would have benefitted from the ability to stay awake to be

able to fight or run away from the threat (Nunn). I probably won’t include this in the

presentation, but it was an interesting subject to come across nonetheless. Afterwards, I went and

found the science behind our process of sleeping.

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Our bodies have these cycles where it releases different chemicals to push us to do

certain things. These are called circadian rhythms and they are not exclusive to humans. Animals

and plants have these rhythms to regulate all sorts of processes. Our circadian rhythms are best

known for regulating our process of sleep. In these circadian rhythms, our bodies translate

information about the time of day into melatonin production. Melatonin is the chemical that

pretty much signals our brain to go to sleep. The way our bodies detect the time of day is through

exposure to light. When someone is exposed to a lot of light, their body prevents melatonin from

being produced. However, when it becomes nighttime and there is not much light, there is no

signal to stop melatonin from being produced and they feel the need to fall asleep. I had also

found the reason why teenagers find it hard to sleep early and wake up early. Apparently, in the

circadian rhythms in teenagers, melatonin is produced three hours later than in the circadian

rhythms of children or adults. This causes teenagers to sleep later, due to not feeling the need to

sleep until later into the night. Also when they wake up early, melatonin production is still

underway, causing them to still feel drowsy and sleepy in the morning (Harper).

Now that I knew the science behind our need for sleep, I wanted to find out the reason

why we had evolved to have this process. There are multiple theories on why human beings have

to sleep. One of the earliest theories is the inactivity theory, which says that it may have been

advantageous to remain inactive to stay out of harm’s way. Those who would be active during

the night would be easily picked off by nocturnal predators. However, an easy counter to this

argument is that if safety is an issue, it would arguably be safer to remain conscious if an attack

or other emergency were to occur.

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Another theory is the energy conservation theory, which is like the name suggests. It

implies that sleep was meant to decrease energy consumption for a period of time. Studies have

shown that energy consumption in human beings decreases only up to 10% during sleep

(HealthySleep). Some argue that saving even just a little bit could have an advantageous impact

for natural selection, but the rest we have does not compare to true energy conservation like

hibernation (Energy Conservation).

The restorative theory of why people sleep is the one that I somewhat knew about. Sleep

gives the body an opportunity for it to restore itself. Processes like muscle growth and protein

synthesis occur mainly if not only during sleep. It also gives the chance to clear the buildup of

adenosine. Adenosine is a chemical that when accumulated, makes a person feel more tired and

less alert (HealthySleep).

The most promising theory though, is the brain plasticity theory. Brain plasticity or

neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt to it being changed or altered. There have

also been some important connections between sleep and the development of our brains. Infants

sleep for around 13-14 hours a day and that may be connected to their brains needing to develop

and adapt for the environment (HealthySleep and Early Brain Development). REM sleep also

known as rapid eye movement sleep seems to be especially important to the development of

infants’ brains. Developmental disorders have been correlated to REM sleep deprivation at an

early age (Early Brain Development).

Overall the reason why people sleep can be linked to many things, but sleep definitely is

vital to overall health and wellbeing. From repairing broken tissues to simply conserving energy,

sleep has many different processes that undergo during it. Learning about why people need sleep
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was actually really interesting and I learned some things that I don’t think I would have even

thought of looking up without this being an assignment. I was intrigued especially about how

teenagers have their melatonin production process begin three hours later than adults and

children, it helped explain one of the possible reasons of why we have so much trouble going to

sleep early and waking up early.

Works Cited:

“Why Do We Sleep, Anyway?” ​Why Do We Sleep, Anyway? | Healthy Sleep​,

healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/why-do-we-sleep.

Zimmerman, John E., et al. “Conservation of Sleep: Insights from Non-Mammalian Model

Systems.” ​Trends in neurosciences​, U.S. National Library of Medicine, July 2008,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930986/.

Pappas, Stephanie. “Why Do We Sleep?” ​LiveScience​, Purch, 18 July 2017,

www.livescience.com/32469-why-do-we-sleep.html.

“Neuroplasticity.” ​Wikipedia​, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Jan. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity.
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Nunn, Charles L., et al. “Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders.”

Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health​, US National Library of Medicine, 28 July 2016,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4972941/.

Harper, Kristin. “The Science of Sleep.” ​American Chemical Society​, 2014,

www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-20

14-2015/the-science-of-sleep.html.

“WHY DO WE SLEEP? - ENERGY CONSERVATION.” ​HowSleepWorks​,

www.howsleepworks.com/why_energy.html.

“WHY DO WE SLEEP? - EARLY BRAIN DEVELOPMENT.” ​HowSleepWorks​,

www.howsleepworks.com/why_brain.html.