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Summary: The Evolutionary Theory Of Sleep

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Recommended: “poor sleep can contribute to weight gain, headaches, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, an impaired immune system, and attention deficit disorder” (lai, wei-shin

Since the time of the very early Greek philosophers sleep has been the subject of speculation and thought, but only lately have researchers found ways to study sleep in a systematic and objective way. The arrival of new technology such as the electroencephalograph (EEG) has granted scientists to observe at and measure electrical patterns and activity produced by the sleeping brain. Sleeping is essential for health and well-being. Sleep is a condition of body and mind such as that which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended. Although sleeping is important millions of people do not get enough sleep, …show more content…

Evolutionary theory, also known as the adaptive theory of sleep, propose that periods of activity and inactivity evolved as a means of conserving energy. According to this theory, all breeds have adapted to sleep during durations of time when wakefulness would be the most dangerous. The backup for this theory comes from provisional research of different animal breeds. Animals that have few natural carnivores, such as bears and lions, often sleep between 12 to 15 hours each day. On the other hand, animals that have many natural carnivores have only short periods of sleep, usually getting no more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep each day. That is why they have to be more alert to survive from the carnivores trying to eat the animal, but the animal that does not have to worry about being eaten has nothing to worry about. So it depends on the person who much the person sleeps to fit their schedule. If someone goes to school and work that person would sleep less. If that person just goes to school then it would have more time to sleep and less to be worried. Each person adapts to different sleeping schedules, for example a person wakes up at 5 a.m. every day for work and only gets 5 hours of sleep, and has the energy to go all day. Another person wakes up at 8 and gets 8 hours of sleep and does not feel tired all day. If you were to switch the two persons the guy who sleeps more would not survive, because the person is not adapted to have 3 hours less of sleep. Everyone adapts to the sleeping schedule they get, it takes time to get used

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