Explainer Series

Learn more about breakthroughs pioneered at the

University of Chicago

How sleep a!ects

human health,
explained
By Alison Caldwell

All human beings need sleep. We spend a third of our

lives asleep, and it’s as important as food, water or air to
our survival. While scientists are still working to
understand the exact nature of sleep and why it’s so
important to our well-being, decades of research have
made it clear that adequate sleep is vital to our physical
and mental health.

Among many other things, sleep plays a crucial role in

memory consolidation and other brain functions,
supporting the immune system and healing after injury
or disease, and protecting against heart disease and
diabetes.

Jump to a section:
How does sleep affect
human health?
Why do we sleep?
What happens to the brain
during sleep?
What is REM sleep?
What conditions have been
linked to sleep?
Can you improve your
health by sleeping more?
What is good sleep
hygiene?

How does sleep a!ect human health?

All human beings — and almost all animals — need

sleep. We spend a third of our lives asleep, and it’s as
important as food, water or air to our survival.

Typically, sleep is de"ned as an altered state of

consciousness or a condition of the body and mind
wherein the nervous system is less active, the body is
relaxed, and consciousness is suspended. The de"nition
of sleep may seem obvious — everyone knows the
di#erence between being asleep and being awake. But
scienti"cally and medically speaking, the term is less
clear, and there is still a lot we don’t understand about
the phenomenon.

While scientists are still working to understand the exact

nature of sleep and why it’s so important to our well-
being, decades of research have made it clear that
adequate sleep is vital to our physical and mental health.

Researchers around the world — including those at the

University of Chicago, home to the world’s "rst sleep
research lab, opened in 1925 — have helped to clarify
major questions about the biological functions of sleep,
as well as its importance in consolidating memories and
protecting the immune system, and the negative impacts
of sleep deprivation.

Photo courtesy of UChicago Medicine

Why do we sleep?

Sleep is literally critical to our survival. We know this

thanks to the groundbreaking work of UChicago Prof.
Allan Rechtscha#en, a sleep research pioneer and
longtime director of the UChicago Sleep Laboratory.

Rechtscha#en was driven by a desire to understand why

we sleep. All mammals, birds and reptiles sleep in some
form or another, and nearly all animals exhibit some sort
of resting or sleep-like behavior. But how and why is it
bene"cial to any species to spend a signi"cant portion of
its life unconscious, unable to search for food or shelter,
to reproduce or to avoid predators?

In 1983, Rectscha#en made a

Allan major discovery: without sleep, a
Rechtschaffen
(Photo courtesy mammal will die. Rats that were
of the
Rechtschaffen continuously deprived of sleep
family)
began to su#er severe health e#ects
and died within about two weeks.
His work led to deeper exploration
into understanding why sleep is so critical to survival,
though despite decades of research, the answer is still
unclear.

What happens to the brain during sleep?

In the brain, sleep manifests as changes in brain activity.

Much of what we understand about the stages of sleep
was learned thanks to the early sleep research done by
UChicago Prof. Nathaniel Kleitman, founder of the
world’s "rst laboratory focused exclusively on sleep. His
1939 textbook, Sleep and Wakefulness, has long been
considered a foundational text for sleep researchers
around the world. His work using all-night
electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings allowed
Kleitman and his team to chart the sequence of sleep
patterns in the brain over the course of the night.

The neuronal cells of the brain use electrical signaling to

send and receive messages throughout the brain and
body. During the transition into sleep, those electrical
signals begin to fall into wave-like patterns, with
di#erent wave patterns associated with di#erent stages of
sleep. As the body relaxes, the brain shifts into the
relatively rapid alpha waves. As a person dozes o#, the
signaling transitions into slower theta waves, before
"nally settling into the deepest stage of slow wave sleep.

Video thumbnail for the video

In 1953, a pair of sleep scientists at the University of Chicago

made a revolutionary discovery: REM, or rapid-eye movement,
a stage of sleep that is important in dreaming, memory, and
emotional processing. Learn more about their finding and
what it meant to the science of sleep.
Video by UChicago Creative

What is REM sleep?

At times during sleep, the brain will also shift back up

into rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. Discovered by
Kleitman and his student Eugene Aserinsky, REM sleep
is characterized by rapid movement of the eyes behind
the eyelids, and brain patterns during REM sleep most
closely resemble those of the awake brain. It’s also the
stage of sleep where dreams occur.

The brain will cycle through these various stages of sleep

several times per night, taking about 90 minutes to two
hours to complete a single cycle. All of these cycles are
important for human health.

What conditions have been linked to sleep?

One of the most popular theories about why sleep is so

important is that it’s critical for allowing the body to
grow, repair and rejuvenate itself. Sleep is vital for
memory consolidation as well as supporting normal
immune function and healing after injury or disease.

There is also a growing body of evidence that sleep helps

the brain to clear cellular and protein debris that can
otherwise build up and cause damage, leading to
in$ammation and cell death.

In the past century, scientists have recognized several

sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy, as well as the
deleterious e#ects of sleep deprivation and poor-quality
sleep on our long-term health.

These include:

INCREASED RISK OF METABOLIC

DISEASES

DECREASED IMMUNE FUNCTION

COGNITIVE DECLINE AND POOR

M E N T A L H E A LT H

Other research among older adults has shown that both

feeling lonely and being socially isolated are associated
with more disrupted sleep measured objectively by
actigraphs, but that only subjective loneliness associated
with self-reported insomnia symptoms.

Can you improve your health by sleeping

more?

Research has shown again and again that improving

sleep quality and attaining a healthy sleep duration can
lead to improvements on all kinds of other health
measures and outcomes. It’s worth it to identify and
address the underlying causes of poor-quality sleep and
low sleep duration.

While poor sleep has been connected to heart issues and

other metabolic problems, improving sleep habits has
been shown to improve measures of many of these
conditions. For example, receiving continuous positive
airway pressure (CPAP) treatment for sleep apnea can
improve sleep quality and lower the risk for metabolic
and cardiovascular diseases in individuals and can
prevent patients with prediabetes from progressing to
clinical diabetes. CPAP treatment can also lower resting
heart rate in prediabetes patients with sleep apnea, a
measure correlated with better heart health. Even just
catching up on lost sleep on the weekends may be able to
reduce overall diabetes risk.

Tasali and her team at the UChicago Sleep Center are

focused on better understanding how improving sleep
quality and duration can improve metabolic and
cardiovascular health and overall health outcomes, and
some of the solutions may be surprisingly simple. In a
2022 study, her team, along with colleagues at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that providing
personalized sleep hygiene counseling led to study
participants sleeping an hour more per night — and that
that additional sleep was associated with a reduction in
daily caloric intake.

Video thumbnail for the video

Experts at UChicago Medicine discuss sleep apnea and the

multidisciplinary approach to treatment.
Video courtesy of UChicago Medicine

Perhaps obviously, sleep deprivation and poor sleep

quality can lead to increased risk of injury and falls,
particularly among older adults and those who are ill;
this is one reason that researchers such as Vineet Arora,
the Herbert T. Abelson Professor of Medicine and dean
for Medical Education at UChicago, have led e#orts to
understand how sleep disruptions a#ect the health and
wellbeing of hospitalized patients, as well as developing
new strategies for reducing the number of nighttime
awakenings and sleep interruptions for those patients.

What is good sleep hygiene?

In the modern era, surrounded by light-up devices and

all kinds of responsibilities and entertainment that
demand our attention, it can be challenging to maintain
good sleep hygiene, which can contribute to loss of sleep
and poor sleep quality.

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Unraveling Sleep’s Greatest Mysteries: The D…

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Good sleep hygiene includes strategies such as

developing a bed time routine that helps you wind down
for the evening, limiting the use of electronic devices
near bed time, keeping the bedroom dark and cool, and
going to bed and waking up at the same time each day.
These strategies can improve overall sleep quality and, in
turn, contribute to better overall health.

Sleep is still poorly understood, even after decades of

research; it’s not quite clear what exactly sleep is, or why
our brains and bodies need it, but it is clear that it plays a
vital role in our health. Continued research into its role
in our lives, as well as how to optimize our sleep and
sleep conditions, will help pave the way for better health
for many.

Last reviewed October 2024.

Top photo courtesy of UChicago Medicine

FACULTY EXPERTS

Diane S. Lauderdale

Esra Tasali

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UChicago Medicine o#ers

consultations for those who suspect
they may be su#ering from a sleep
disorder and can help with
diagnosing and treating sleep issues
such as insomnia, narcolepsy, restless
leg syndrome and sleep apnea. For
more information, visit the
UChicago Medicine website or call 1-
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