“I need to go to sleep, I’m tired. And how many cups of coffee I drank today? I think 6. Wait was it 8… or maybe 7? And who was that strange man with long legs? Is he staring at me through the TV? Oh no, that is just Randy Gardner…Randy Gardner…Who is this Randy Gardner? Reporter from TV: Randy Gardner did not sleep for 11 days straight. A miracle! Randy Gardner…Am I Randy Gardner? How long have I been awake? 3 days —or more like 4 and a half? But I can’t be Randy Gardner, my birth certificate says otherwise… Now I understand why Dali’s paintings are strange… He is a damn hypnagogic. Hah! Am I a hypnagogic?” Stopped.
Sleep could very easily be taken for granted, we hear phrases like: “sleep for at least 8 hours a day” constantly —and let them fly past our ears. But what is actually “sleep”? The whole mechanic is complex to the level that it would mess up with your brains —just like sleep deprivation did with our character from the first passage. But I will try to simplify “sleep” in a way that I bet a 10 year-old would understand. A challenge -yes- but I will let you be the judge if I succeeded or not.
First of all why do we sleep? Well the answer should be simple — to let our brain rest… Right? Wrong. Forget about your brain resting just because “it got tired”. It never does —at least not fully. Think about it like a tech-maintenance, If when you are awake your brain checks the surroundings, when you fall asleep it check ups the internals of the body. And not only physically, also mentally. The brain rejuvenates the body, regulating our metabolism, repairing our tissues and producing the growth hormone. You might say “I am as tall as I will ever get. What do I need the growth hormone for?”. Sadly it doesn’t work like that. The growth hormone promotes muscle growth —so as long you don’t get enough sleep, all of your squat reps at the gym are simply meaningless. In addition sleeping burns fat, so not only your diet and your cardio is important — sleeping is too.
Another thing sleep does is restore you on the mental side. All of us had the experience when we just can’t function after a bad night. You put the bread in the microwave and the cereal in the toaster, wear your shoes the wrong way around and the only thing in your brain is the cymbal banging monkey meme. Well why this happens? Because sleep is vital for your cognitive functioning, mental health and even learning! Did you know that without sleep you can’t create the needed pathways in your brain to restore and lock in your memories? So next time you think about pulling an all nighter, remember that it will make things just worse. Whether you are preparing for an exam or for a job meeting —make sure to get those 7-8 hours.
Now that we know “Why we sleep”, the next question to answer is: How we sleep? “Sleep isn’t uniform”, you go through several sleep cycles throughout the duration of your sleep, each consisting of four phases: N1, N2 N3 (deep sleep) & REM sleep. Think of it like slowly submerging yourself in a hot jacuzzi —the deeper you progress, the more relaxed your body gets. During stage N1, the body isn’t fully relaxed yet, but there are some changes in one’s body activities. This is the stage where it is relatively easy to wake someone up. It is like when you fall asleep during a bus-ride —one shove and you are awake. But if let untouched, one can easily transcend into N2: in this stage you slowly start to enter the jacuzzi. If in N1 only your toes were in, in N2 you start to fully feel the relaxation that the jacuzzi brings: your body temperature drops, your heart beats and breathing rates slow down, eye activity stops and brain activity slows down. Then you enter N3, or deep-sleep. Now you are fully in the jacuzzi, enjoying yourself to the fullest. This is the stage where it is the hardest to wake someone up; pulse & breathing rate slow down and muscle tone decreases. This is the critical stage for your regeneration — it recovers your body and readies it for tomorrow, also honing your creativity and sharpness.The last but not least stage is REM sleep aka Rapid Eye Movement sleep. Why REM though? Do our eyes actually move? Yes! This is the stage where the most vivid dreams occur and our brain activities pick to the same levels when we were awake. Our eyes rapidly move, observing our strange dreams, hence the name. Think of this stage as smoking in the jacuzzi -and not necessarily cigarettes. Some may say “I don’t see dreams, so I don’t experience REM sleep? Well, not exactly, you are just waking up at the different stages (N1, N2, N3) of sleep —and thus not remembering your dreams. Want to experience them again? Some experts recommend drinking a couple cups of water before sleep, and voila; you wake up several times during the night for the toilet, increasing your chances of waking up during REM sleep, and remembering your dreams! Just one note: If you see a toilet in your dream, don’t use it: it’s a trap. The four stages mentioned repeat several times during the night until ,of course, you wake up.
After all, sleep is not something that should be seen as an ordinary being, it is a whole new dimension happening inside your body. Consequently, my main aim in this article wasn’t to pass your time or even inform you, it was to encourage you to do your own research, and improve your own sleep yourself. Because remember that it isn’t quantity that is crucial, it is the quality.
Bibliography
- Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine (2021) Why Sleep Matters: Benefits of Sleep. Available at: https://sleep.hms.harvard.edu/education-training/public-education/sleep-and-health-
education-program/sleep-health-education-41 (Accessed: 29 September 2025). - Suni, E. (2025) ‘Stages of Sleep: What Happens in a Normal Sleep Cycle?’, Sleep Foundation, 25 July. Available at: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/stages-of-sleep (Accessed: 29 September 2025).
- BBC Future (2018) ‘The boy who stayed awake for 11 days’, BBC Future, 18 January. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180118-the-boy-who-stayed-awake-for-11-days (Accessed: 29 September 2025).