Sleep is a battle

Like soldiers on a battlefield, we have two powerful and opposing

drives locked in vicious, biological combat. The armies, each made of

legions of brain cells and biochemicals, have very different agendas.

Though localized in the head, the theater of operations for these

armies engulfs every corner of the body. The war they are waging

has some interesting rules. First, these forces are engaged not just

during the night, while we sleep, but also during the day, while we

are awake. Second, they are doomed to a combat schedule in which

each army sequentially wins one battle, then promptly loses the

next battle, then quickly wins the next and so on, cycling through

this win/loss column every day and every night. Third, neither army

ever claims final victory. This incessant engagement is referred to as

the “opponent process” model. It results in the waking and sleeping

modes all humans cycle through every day (and night) of our lives.

One army is composed of neurons, hormones, and various other

chemicals that do everything in their power to keep you awake. This

army is called the circadian arousal system (often simply called “process C”).

If this

army had its

way,

you would

stay up all the

time.

It

is opposed by an equally

powerful

army, also made of

brain

cells,

hormones, and

various

chemicals.

These combatants do

everything

in their

power to put

you to

sleep.

They

are termed the homeostatic

sleep drive

(“process

S”).

If this

army had its

way,

you would go to

sleep and never wake up. These drives define for us both the amount

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of sleep we need and the amount of sleep we get. Stated formally,

process S maintains the duration and intensity of sleep, while process C determines the tendency and
timing of the need to go to

sleep.
3. SLEEP

It is a paradoxical war. The longer one army controls the field, for

example, the more likely it is to lose the battle. It’s almost as if each

army becomes exhausted from having its way and eventually waves

a temporary white flag. Indeed, the longer you are awake (the victorious

process C doing

victory laps

around

your head), the

greater the

probability becomes that the

circadian

arousal

system will cede the

field

to

its

opponent.

You

then

go

to

sleep.

For

most

people,

this
act

of capitulation comes after about 16 hours of active

consciousness.

This will

occur, Kleitman found, even if

you

are living in a

cave.

Conversely, the longer

you

are asleep (the triumphant

process

S now doing the heady

victory laps), the

greater the

probability

becomes

that

the

homeostatic

sleep

drive

will

similarly
cede

the

field

to

its

opponent,

which

is,

of

course,

the

drive

to

keep

you

awake.

The

result of this

surrender is that

you

wake

up.

For most

people, the

length

of
time

prior

to

capitulation

is

about

half

of

its

opponent’s,

about eight hours of blissful

sleep.

And this also will occur even if

you

are living in a

cave.

Such dynamic tension is a

normal—even

critical—part of our

daily

lives.

In fact,

the

circadian

arousal

system
and

the homeostatic

sleep drive

are

locked in a

cycle of

victory and

surrender so

predictable,

you can

graph it.

In one of Kleitman’s most interesting experiments, he and a

colleague spent an entire month living 1,300 feet underground in

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Free of sunlight and daily schedules,

Kleitman could find out whether the routines of wakefulness and

sleep cycled themselves automatically through the human body.

His experiment provided the first real hint that such an automatic

device did exist in our bodies. Indeed, we now know that the body

possesses a series of internal clocks, all controlled by discrete regions

in the brain, providing a regular rhythmic schedule to our waking

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and sleeping experiences. This is surprisingly similar to the buzzing

of a wristwatch’s internal quartz crystal. An area of the brain called

the suprachiasmatic nucleus appears to contain just such a timing