Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

by Matthew Walker

sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day—Mother

The technical name for this graphic is a hypnogram

When it comes to information processing, think of the wake state principally as reception (experiencing and constantly learning the world around you), NREM sleep as reflection (storing and strengthening those raw ingredients of new facts and skills), and REM sleep as integration (interconnecting these raw ingredients with each other, with all past experiences, and, in doing so, building an ever more accurate model of how the world works, including innovative insights and problem-solving abilities).

Sleep is of such vital necessity that no matter what the evolutionary demands of an organism, even the unyielding need to swim in perpetuum from birth to death, Mother Nature had no choice. Sleep with both sides of the brain, or sleep with just one side and then switch. Both are possible, but sleep you must. Sleep is non-negotiable.