Sleep isn't merely a release from the cares of the day because it is far more than a relief for our body's stresses. Sleep is a time of incredible action for your brain. In fact, your brain is probably more active while you sleep than during your normal day. Who would have thought that during sleep your brain would be performing the most crucial actions to help you get through the next day and the rest of your life?

What happens while you sleep? Incredibly, the brain changes its size; it begins to squeeze out the waste that has accumulated during the day. Yes, every time you do something during the day you are creating brain waste and these materials can accumulate. The garbage in the brain must be seen as damaging to it (think Alzheimer's disease) and that will affect your thinking and creative abilities. In fact, it's probably not limited to those two factors, but has more wide-ranging effects than we now know.

The brain maintains incredible secrets which have not been unlocked to date. In the future, we will see the brain as truly "the final frontier." Sleep will be appreciated in a whole new way we should have for millennia. Viewing sleep as a waste of time is tantamount to torturing our bodies. Yes, there are people who require less sleep and some who may require more.

One of the biggest proponents of scoffing at sleep as a waste was Thomas Edison. Notoriously known for his rigorous work ethic, Edison maintained cots all over his laboratories so that he could take naps all during the day. He never admitted to getting a full night's sleep, but how many hours did all those naps rack up?

Another short sleeper was Leonardo DaVinci. The famous painter and inventor was noted for taking micro-sleeps and never slept for more than 15 minutes at a time, according to sleep researchers. Leonardo could work through the night and through the day and it is an incredible feat of human ability to work almost nonstop. Such a regime is not recommended for anyone.

One of the most famous experiments regarding lack of sleep was performed in 1959 by a New York City radio host who set up a booth in Times Square. He attempted to work on the radio, non-stop, during his lack-of-sleep fest for 200 hours. However, it didn't end well and he became psychotic at the end of the wake-a-thon, ran out of the booth with paranoid ideations, and, from reports, lost his job.

Now we know how vital sleep is and we also know that there are many sleep disorders that not only disrupt restful, healthful sleep but our entire lives. One of the more curious disorders is sleep-related-eating disorder (SRED). During the time a person would be sleeping, they get up and eat both edible and non-edible things, go back to bed and the next day have no memory of it.

Often, the only evidence of their disorder is food lying either around their homes or on their bed or night table. They also discover that they cannot lose weight despite the fact that they are on rigorous diets.

Anyone suspecting that they have a great deal of difficulty sleeping or that they might have a sleep disorder such as I had described, should be consulting a Sleep Medicine physician for an evaluation.