Nature has decreed that all living things must sleep during a part of the day. Sleep has been carefully studied by scientists. However, there is still a lot that we don’t know about it. From what we’ve learned, important physiological processes take place during the unconscious phase of our sleep, what we call deep sleep. The role of dreams is less clear. It seems that the brain gets a chance to reorganize itself, and sort out the day’s events. It is this process of “moving around the furniture” that produces our disjointed dreams. However, some dreams are well organized; some ideas that come to us during our dreams can be very useful. A solution to a difficult problem can be found after a night’s sleep.

Sleep, marvelous as it is, comes at a price. It consumes one-third of our life. Being short on time, modern humans are tempted to cheat. They reduce the time spent sleeping. Preparing for exams, finishing an important project at work, or spending sleepless nights with a newborn are all valid reasons for cutting down on sleep – for now. But it’s like a debt. Indeed, it’s called a sleep debt. You need to repay it, i.e. sleep longer on some days. It’s not clear what happens when, over time, this debt (or part thereof) is not repaid. The connection between lack of sleep and a health problem(s) is not easy to make.

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