Lack of sleep may cause anxiety by making us less adaptable to threats

 

Image courtesy of Millennium Images/plainpicture

Joel Kontinen

A lack of sleep can cause anxiety, which would  cause less adaptable threats.

We often feel more anxious and stressed when we are tired, and scientists may have partly uncovered why. A lack of shuteye may make it harder for our brain to adapt to new, potentially threateninig environments, keeping us in a hyperalert state. This might have been an advantage for our ancient human ancestors, who were more vulnerable to predators, but may be less useful in our modern world.

“Our biodies and brain view sleep loss as a reason to turn on the emergency engines in order to survive,” says Eti Ben Simon at the University of Texas at Dallas, who wasn’t involved in the research. “It is a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach we received from evolution to better deal with challenges in tough times.”

 Source:

Tosin Thompson 2026 Lack of sleep may cause anxiety by making us less adaptable to threats | New Scientist 24 August

Sleep evolved before the brain did

Image courtesy of Flatters & Co., public domain.

Joel Kontinen 

Evolution believing scientist have found out that sleep evolved before brain did, this is shown in a tiny, brainless, freshwater animal called a hydra.

"We now have strong evidence that animals must have acquired the need to sleep before acquiring a brain," study lead author Taichi Q. Itoh, an assistant professor at Kyushu University in Japan, said. 

They discovered that the hydra, the animal that lacks a brain take some sleep. Humans and all mammals, as well as in insects and even roundworms. sleep.  However, all these creatures have some form of central nervous system. or brain, and so scientists didn't know whether the evolution of sleep preceded that of brains, or vice versa.

Source: 

Rettner, Rachael, 2021. Sleep evolved before brains did, study finds.  Live Science 14 January.