By Ashley Sun ’18, Staff Writer

Sleep can be described as a precious thing. When the dreary night falls upon this half of the earth and shadows swallow the horizon, people will climb onto their respective beds and close their eyes to rest. As the moon keeps watch in the sky, some fall heavily onto soft pillows and children are hushed and tucked into their sheets. The cities and towns are draped in a drowsy blanket of silence, as everyone goes to sleep. They are, as Shakespeare would say, under “the honey-heavy dew of slumber”. And although this might seem like quite the peaceful and poetic (or sappy and cliché) moment, the tranquil scene is quickly ruined when we are informed that these millions of people will all proceed to have their bodies paralyzed by chemicals, lose awareness, experience involuntary eye twitching, and later suffer amnesia about the whole experience. Did I mention inconsistent yet vivid hallucinations? The most shocking part, however, is not how sleeping is strange in some ways, but rather that people tend to take sleeping as it is, without further questioning. Yes, asking why people sleep may seem like an idiotic question, but after thinking about it, it’s very complicated. Surely, as students at Newark Academy, we are encouraged and expected to question things, sleep being no exception.

Recently, a survey was distributed to the entire middle school during advisor groups one Thursday morning. Students filled out answers to questions regarding favorite vacation spots, movies, philosophical zombies, and sleep. Some curiously pointed out that the question of “what is sleep?” was unhelpfully vague and blunt. Okay yes, the question was unhelpfully vague and blunt, not to mention a little awkwardly phrased. But the desired effect was achieved. Instead of prompting a standard dictionary response, people filled out what they believed sleep was.

 A large majority of students wrote something along the lines of “When you close your eyes and rest.” Others took the question to another level using figurative language and saying something like, “When you quietly leave behind reality to explore a new world.” And still, the third most popular response, not answering and leaving no comment, perhaps boycotting the question because of its stark simplicity and ambiguity. It was nice to see what the middle school thought of sleep. One of the more strange answers was from Rebecca Slater ‘18, who stated in her response, “Sleep is for the weak,” which was strikingly similar to famous insomniac Margaret Thatcher, whose motto was that “Sleep is for wimps.”

But as much as Rebecca or the Iron Lady would like to dismiss sleep as “for the weak”, sleep not just a sweet indulgence commonly referenced on Teenager Post, it is a mysteriously necessary part of life. Of the 24 hours in a day, Newark Academy middle school students on average spend about 8 hours sleeping. To put this into perspective, if the trend continues, when you are 90 years old, you will have slept for 30 years. Staying awake is simply not an option. The biological (Circadian) clocks are ticking. Yet, sleep and exhaustion don’t seem to have many advantages on the surface of things. Even the idea that sleep allows your brain to rest seems a bit fishy when you realize that parts of your brain are more active when sleeping than while awake. The numbers don’t even out. As noted by neuroscientist Russell Foster, the difference between full-on sleeping and the dozing off that some students here tend to do during long assemblies (for shame!) is about 110 calories a night, the equivalent of a hot dog bun. Not a very good upshot for such a complex process. On a primitive level, it wouldn’t be very rational for humans to tire out and lose consciousness for 8 whole hours, while other possibly hostile and dangerous animals lurk about. All humans and animals sleep, despite the fact that being unconscious and unresponsive greatly raises the risk of becoming another creature’s lunch. And as NA students, we would probably be better off without fatigue and voluntarily passing out every night, especially during the middle of the year, with the nightmare that is the American Studies workload and cramming for math exams. Not sleeping means having that much more time to do homework and free time. An anonymous middle schooler exclaimed that he would probably finish homework and go on a Call of Duty marathon if he didn’t have to sleep. Sleep doesn’t make sense on the primitive level, nor is it rational when you think from the perspective of the regular student. So why do we sleep?

When asked the question “Why do you sleep?” students, including 8th graders Jonathan Goodison-Orr and Jack Galvin, along with many more, generally frowned and started by saying that they didn’t know. Eventually, many followed up with some sort of explanation; Warren Sunada-Wong ‘20 bluntly said, “So that I don’t die.” while an 8th grader, who wishes to remain unnamed, carefully explained the process of how sleep helps develop memories and described the brain processing information acquired during the day. “Sleep is important for your brain to process information,” Mrs. Palmer, a 7th grade science and 9th grade biology teacher also stated. “It’s how your brain converts short term memories into long term memories,” she added at the end. And this has been demonstrated in many studies, where (don’t try this at home) people deprived of sleep had trouble learning and remembering. During the night, the mind replays what happened earlier in the day firing the same neurons, using what is called long-term potentiation, a process in which synapses become stronger the more frequently signals are passed between two neurons. This mechanism is believed to play a major role in the learning and memory processes. When two neurons fire at the same time repeatedly, they become more likely to fire together in the future. Eventually, these two neurons will become sensitized to one another, which means that you are more likely to remember. A lack of sleep may have a serious impact on the ability to recall and remember information.

Strangely enough, neuroscientists still have not reached a consensus on why people sleep. Despite being one of the most prominent parts of our lifestyle, we don’t know much about sleep. There are many widely supported theories out there about sleep, including the one Mrs. Palmer brought up, the information consolidation theory, where the brain works during the night to process information and as the name suggests, consolidate information. But as 8th grade science teacher Ms. Mason said as to why we sleep, “Science doesn’t know yet.” She also mentioned reparation and replenishing ATP (adenosine triphosphate) supply during REM sleep. There are many theories out there, some involving evolution, energy conservation, reparation and restoration, each supported by their own share of studies and experiments. The repair and restoration theory of sleep maintains that sleeping is essential for revitalizing and restoring the physiological processes that keep the body and mind healthy and properly functioning. This theory suggests that NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep is important for restoring physiological functions, while REM (rapid eye movement; you might recall the mention of involuntary eye twitching in the first paragraph?) sleep is essential in restoring mental functions. Then there’s the evolution theory, in which all species have adapted to sleep during periods of time when wakefulness would be the most hazardous. However, theories in science are not just random thoughts or ideas tossed out to the public. These theories have been tested or demonstrated in many experiments or studies. While there is research and evidence to support each of these theories of sleep, there is still no clear-cut support for any one theory. But you can rest assured, they are working on the answer, or even answers. It is very possible that each one of these theories can be together used to explain why we sleep.  Sleeping impacts many physiological processes, so it is very possible that sleep occurs for many reasons and purposes. But in the end, regardless of whether it’s from evolution or for memories and repair, all of us, scientists or not, probably know two things for certain about sleep, first, it’s absolutely essential, and second, it’s also absolutely wonderful.

Sleep tight.