It’s late and I can’t sleep.

I did psychology and A Level – rather poorly I might add and you are able to get an insight into why!

Why we sleep is one of the modules and something that I have always struggled with. I remember asking my science teacher when learning about food as fuel – ‘then why do we need to sleep?’ her response was because we just do!

This was my fourth interruption of the class and the first three were nowhere near as constructive: I had hidden her keys to the storage cupboard and left a ransom note on her desk, started a debate on the best Harry Potter book and flicked elastic bands at a girl I fancied – so her response was more than fair.

Anyway, I later found that this was not an entirely decided school of thought as to why we sleep, there were loads of differing views, I’ve read a book in recent years that I think is now accepted by the larger parts of the scientific community. It basically says that we need sleep to let our brain digest and relax etc. Not mine with these dreams but that is for another day perhaps.

Now this is to sensible a theory and for me – SO…

The best theory that I remember is the Evolutionary Theory of Sleep. A very clever scientist hypothesised that in the past, humans had to hide from predators and as such when it got dark they went to sleep to help them not be bored and move to much which helped them not get noticed and more importantly not get eaten.

Now let me say this – sorry to the teacher that did a very good job of teaching this to me in far more detail and in a better context that I have explained. You perhaps can see why I didn’t do great.

My take away from this theory is that we sleep because we get bored, I wonder with netflix and IG, if we will soon phase out sleep and just run on protein shakes and screen time.

Good night – I hope!