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Comment by septerr | Hacker News Reader

Tldr:

When we sleep, our brains process the events of the day and pick out things to stow away in our long term memory.

Maybe as a side-effect of this processing, they also aid problem solving - after a good night's sleep, you are able to find solutions to the previous day's problems faster (than you would, if you hadn't had the sleep).

As we sleep, our brains clear away toxins that accumulate during our awake time. These toxins may be culprits behind neuro degenerative diseases.

There seems to be a correlation between sleep deprivation and cardiovascular diseases.

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>> Maybe as a side-effect of this processing, they also aid problem solving.

This is an interesting side effect considering when I have a tough coding problem, it keeps my brain churning for hours and it keeps me from falling asleep.

It's clear your subconscious comes to the forefront as your conscious part of your brain turns off during sleep. Having your subconscious solving complex problems is fascinating to me. I'm wondering how you could activate this on purpose, without having these issues keep you awake at night when you consciously can't let go of a problem.

The implications of this are pretty cool if you could pull it off.

Sleep also somehow helps the immune system do its thing properly. After a night without sleep or a few days with insufficient sleep, the immune system is partly compromised. As one example, multiple people I know with chronic virus-caused skin conditions (like warts, herpes, ...) have symptoms when they don’t get sufficient sleep. I know a couple people whose arthritis kicks into high gear after insufficient sleep.

Sleep also definitely has a large effect on mood, I assume at least partly through the mix of stress hormones produced; many people I have known closely become extremely emotional and irritable when they haven’t had enough sleep. Others become emotionally detached/withdrawn (at least, by outward appearances).

I've also read that sleep can help with weight loss - but maybe that is a stress related side-effect.

I think it's more that cortisol (stress hormone) inhibits weight loss, and its at higher levels when you don't get enough sleep.

Reorganizing memories is surely beneficial, but there's something with resting in a bed, or maybe even just laying flat. When reaching a deadend, frustrated to the point of becoming dizzy, I take a nap. Just a few seconds there and ideas start to come. As if it's easier to imagine things when you're the dreaming position.

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