How the brain self-medicates during sleep

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

For a long time it was believed that the brain, like muscles in the body, gets tired and just relaxes at night. But later experiments showed that in his sleep he continues to work actively.

The following assumptions: he processes the information accumulated during the day, solves emotional problems. But there is another revolutionary hypothesis - at night the brain "communicates" with the internal organs and "patches" the body. A world-renowned scientist, researcher at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ivan Pigarev spoke about it.

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Ivan Pigarev is a leading researcher at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems. Deals with the physiology of sleep. His work is known all over the world, many devices are created by himself at home and in the laboratory.

Sleep is not a waste of time, but a cure

Pigarev's theory is accepted in medicine, but rejected by those who are professionally engaged in sleep - it breaks all foundations.

Studying the issues of sleep, conventional wisdom, the scientist thought that many animals sleep as much as humans. The rat, for example, is even bigger. But what information does her brain process in her sleep? And what kind of moral and emotional problems do ducks or moles solve at night?

Agree, it's hard to answer. And here's what else puzzled: there are many receptors in the internal organs, they constantly collect information - about temperature, acidity, chemical processes. Where she goes is a mystery. After all, signals from the eyes are processed by two-thirds of the cerebral cortex, but, for example, data from the stomach does not seem to arrive there.

In addition, the experiments speak for themselves: when the rats were deprived of sleep and they died, the autopsy showed that there were no changes in the brain of the rodents, but the internal organs suffered greatly.

Such reflections and many years of experiments led Ivan Pigarev to a logical conclusion: during sleep, the brain analyzes messages from internal organs, assesses the physical condition of the body and self-medicates.

What exactly is going on?

In the course of experiments and experiments, the scientist came to the conclusion that every night our body scans all internal organs and, first of all, puts in order what most needs help. Next, if you are still asleep, comes the second line of tasks, the third.

The phase of sleep matters. The main interaction of internal organs with the cerebral cortex occurs during slow wave sleep. And during REM sleep, the brain takes care of itself - after all, it is also an internal organ, and not just a control center.

Thus, you need to sleep exactly as much as you want. Sleep is not a waste of time, as has long been thought. Sleep is the most important part of our life, during which the brain is engaged in complex activities. Perhaps even more complex than the one he was busy with while awake. And if we want to be effective, healthy, we need a good restful sleep. No interference or unnatural shortening.

That is, alarms are essentially harmful. Although it is clear that you need to make allowances for modern life. If an alarm clock is necessary, you should at least try to reduce the harm from it: do not set sharp and loud signals, it is better to use natural sounds of nature or vibration in general.

Throughout its life, the brain receives a rich experience of working with our body, it learns. And gradually he can cope with the control of various organs of the body faster and faster. So it turns out that healthy people begin to sleep less with age. But, mind you, if the elderly develop illnesses, the duration of sleep increases.

Sleeping pills are not a panacea

When you fall asleep yourself or when you drink sleeping pills - these are completely different things and they lead to different results. The pill can make it easier to fall asleep, but it will not turn on the mechanisms of internal organs control. At the moment, at least five blocks for switching information flows are known, which transfer us from wakefulness to sleep.

By the way, sleeplessness is a big problem. In America, a huge number of people suffer from it, and in Russia the numbers are growing every year. Sleep disorder leads to various diseases (the same stomach ulcer, etc.), but it is still not taken seriously.