What Happens When We Sleep🌙

Your Brain Is a Messy Bedroom (And Sleep Is the Housekeeper + more!)

We (should) spend a third of our lives asleep. That’s more time than we spend eating, talking, working, or scrolling the Gram (I hope!) — and yet, for a long time, sleep has been a bit of a mystery. Scientists didn’t fully understand why we did it or what exactly was going on when we closed our eyes.

But if there’s one thing we do know it’s that chronic stress and chronic sleep issues go hand-in-hand, and poor sleep creates a cycle that can be incredibly hard to get out of — leading to a loss in our focus and productivity! With many adults experiencing sleep disruption, sleep deprivation, or chronic sleep issues it is an increasing source of lost income and opportunities. When we don’t get enough sleep, we can experience:

🥱 Fatigue and Brain Fog

😠 Inability to Retain or Recall Information

🤒 Reduced immunity and getting sick often

😢 Increased risk of pain and injuries

😑 Difficulty managing weight

😵 Serious illness + death

If you can relate to any of that, keep reading! Over the next few posts we’ll be diving deep into sleep — beginning with this post where we’ll explore why we sleep and the amazing things going on inside our body during sleep. Then we’ll move on to learning about sleep cycles and simple strategies for improving and optimizing our sleep.

Thanks to research, we now know *a lot* more about what sleep does for the body and brain. Understanding some of the key ways our body is restoring and replenishing itself during sleep can help us commit to making sleep a priority and feel more in-tune with whether or not we had a good sleep session.

As always, I want to break it down in a way that’s simple and visual — something that’ll stick with you and hopefully pop into your head when you're debating whether to press play on another episode or give Instagram one more swipe…

✨ Imagine your brain is a messy bedroom

Stay with me here! You know what a messy bedroom looks like: clothes on the floor. Coffee cups on the nightstand. Dust bunnies blowing around the floor. Random receipts and cords and snacks in weird places. At the end of a busy day, this is what your brain feels like.

All the decisions you made, emails you answered, conversations you had, Reels you watched, books you read, problems you solved — that’s mental clutter. On average, we make 35,000 decisions a day, which can be amplified for caregivers, people with chronic illness, marginalized folks etc. If your brain is a bedroom that thing is A MESS at the end of a busy day.

Now, here’s the magic part: Sleep is when the brain cleans house.

During deep sleep, your brain clears out cellular waste and sorts through the mental clutter. It decides what memories to keep, what to let go of, and files important things away — consolidating that information where you can find it again.

But if you don’t get enough sleep?

Well, the room gets partially cleaned. Maybe the bed is made and the dirty socks are kind of piled up in a corner. But you’re still stepping over piles all day. You’re foggy. Sluggish. More easily overwhelmed. Sound familiar?

BUT…it gets even better.

After a good night of sleep, your room is clean and organized. You can walk around. You know where stuff is. You feel sharper, more focused, more you.

With a “clean room”, the main purpose of sleep is complete: cellular waste has been removed so your brain is ready for another busy day. Your memories have been consolidated and new information has been moved over to long-term storage.

But a good night of sleep doesn’t just clean our room. A quality night of sleep also has the ability to do a little “makeover” and add some upgrades to make our room even better. So now your room isn’t just clean and organized, it looks like this:

🛡 Restored Immunity: Sleep is when our body restores our immunity, including our “natural killer cells”. These cells identify and eliminate unwanted elements, such as viruses or cancer cells. Studies have found that *just one hour less sleep* can reduce immune cell activity by 70% (if you’ve ever gotten sick after a long travel day or stressful week that interrupted your sleep — it could have been due to lack of sleep causing weakened immunity)! Picture adding a HEPA filter to the room to keep the air free of viruses and contaminants.

💪🏻 Tissue Repair: Sleep is when our body repairs damaged tissues (such as cuts, scars, injuries, or sore muscles) and is also when it builds new tissue, such as muscle, hair, and nails — meaning if you’re working out or doing other health-promoting things but still not sleeping enough, results will be limited. Picture a mattress topper or some great pillows added to the bed — you’ll be more comfortable and less likely to be injured.

⛑️ Emotional First Aid: Sleep allows our brain to process stressful or confusing situations from the day. It’s like overnight therapy that helps us cope, adapt, and stay emotionally balanced. Picture a therapist magically appearing in your room and spending a couple hours with you each night. (fun fact: some scientists think this process is what causes dreams — our brain trying to sort things out and sometimes getting “hung up” on things it can’t make sense of or classify!)

🧬 Hormone Regulation: Sleep regulates various hormones, which is important for overall mental and physical health but also includes hormones like ghrelin, which controls our hunger and fullness cues. This is why a night of poor sleep can lead to major cravings and poor nutritional choices. Picture your room now having a personal nutritionist along with a selection of healthy foods readily available.

In a nutshell, THIS is why we sleep! Not just to feel rested — but to get a full-body refresh, a mental decluttering, an immune upgrade, disease prevention, therapy session, and a hormone tune-up all in one. It’s how we restore, repair, and regulate so we can meet each day with more clarity, energy, and ease. It’s not hard to see that a good night of sleep is at the foundation of being focused and productive.

So next time you’re tempted to stay up late to check one more thing off your list or watch one more episode, remember: your messy bedroom needs a good cleaning and makeover!

Watch for my next two posts to land in your inbox to learn about sleep cycles and get my favorite tips for improved and optimized sleep 🌙 Below is one of my favorite TedTalks by Dr. Matt Walker (Author of Why We Sleep) — I especially love his explanation of how sleep impacts our immunity.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out the other posts in this series:

🛌🏻 Understanding Our Sleep Cycles: Unlock better rest by understanding the four stages of sleep + what they do

💤 Six Ways to Improve Your Sleep: I (mostly) sleep like a baby and these are my favorite ways to optimize my slumber