The Evolution of Sleep
Why Did Sleep Evolve in Humans and Animal Species?
Sleep is a phenomenal thing. Like comedian Steve Byrne once joked, “I love sleep so much that when I wake up, I’m like, ‘I can’t wait to do that again!’” Sleep is a staple of our biological cycles and for many, a cornerstone of our sanity, those hours of the day when we can shut off and rest, recovering from hard work and the pressures of constant vigilance.
Some of us love it, some of us hate it and resist it entirely, those night owls who stay awake all hours of the night and into the morning, waking only a few hours later to tend to the duties and responsibilities of waking life. But, love it or hate it, sleep is necessary. Sleep is incredibly necessary to restore our biological functions and help prepare us for another waking day. But, why did sleep evolve? Why did organisms begin to sleep somewhere along the evolutionary timeline?
The answer isn’t exactly clear, at current, but there are many running theories which have been proposed, like the conservation of energy which will be needed to obtain things like food and shelter, as well as fending off predators, and then there’s also the idea that sleep evolved so our bodies would have a period of time to clean itself, consolidate the experiences of our day into memories which we will carry with us for years to come…
