asd
Saturday, September 21, 2024

Why Do We Sleep? – The Atlantic

[ad_1]

That is an version of The Surprise Reader, a publication through which our editors advocate a set of tales to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Join right here to get it each Saturday morning.

Why do residing issues sleep? “Ask researchers this query, and hear as, like clockwork, a way of awe and frustration creeps into their voices,” Veronique Greenwood wrote in 2018.

“In a method, it’s startling how common sleep is,” she continued. “Within the midst of the hurried scramble for survival, throughout eons of bloodshed and loss of life and flight, uncountable tens of millions of residing issues have laid themselves down for a pleasant, lengthy bout of unconsciousness. This hardly appears conducive to residing to combat one other day … That such a dangerous behavior is so frequent, and so persistent, means that no matter is going on is of the utmost significance.”

In different phrases, Greenwood writes, “no matter sleep offers to the sleeper is value tempting loss of life time and again, for a lifetime.” No matter sleep offers us can be well worth the many hours, and huge quantities of cash, that people now spend determining learn how to maximize our slumber. Sixty % of America’s adults report experiencing sleep issues each night time or most nights, Amanda Mull famous in 2019, and quite a lot of industries have sprung as much as assist us sleep longer and higher.

Sleep is a necessity, however it’s additionally a ritual: The place we sleep, after we sleep, and who we sleep subsequent to say quite a bit about who we’re and what we wish. Right now’s studying record explores sleep as a scientific thriller, a bodily want, and probably the most constant routine of our day by day lives.


On Sleep

A medieval knight sleeping
Hulton Archive / Getty

Can Medieval Sleeping Habits Repair America’s Insomnia?

By Derek Thompson

“My 3-a.m. awakenings aren’t an unnatural dysfunction however an ancestral echo.”

illustration
The Atlantic

Why Everybody Ought to Sleep Alone

By Malika Rao

On the virtues of splitting up for the night time

A child sleeping next to a dog
Keystone View / FPG / Getty

I Discovered the Key to the Kingdom of Sleep

By Amanda Mull

It’s my foot.


Nonetheless Curious?


Different Diversions


P.S.

I’ll depart you with one sleep reality from the animal kingdom that solely provides to the thriller: Golden hamsters “have been noticed waking up from bouts of hibernation—with a view to nap,” Greenwood experiences. “No matter they’re getting from sleep, it’s not accessible to them whereas they’re hibernating.” However what’s it? Scientists nonetheless don’t know.

— Isabel

[ad_2]

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Articles