ArticleJournal of circadian rhythms2020
Why We Sleep: A Hypothesis for an Ultimate or Evolutionary Origin for Sleep and Other Physiological Rhythms.
Article in Journal of circadian rhythms, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Molecularly distinct subtypes ofiScience · 2026Article
- Examining sleep signals at the cradle of life: can phylogenomic analysis of the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) reveal the fundamental role of sleep?Molecular genetics and genomics : MGG · 2026Article
- How distinct are sleep sites from active sites across habitat types in lizards?Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Looking back: tracing the origins of sleep across the animal kingdom.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- The multifaceted impact of circadian disruption on cancer risk: a systematic review of insights and economic implications.Journal of the National Cancer Center · 2025Review
- Local versus global sleep organization and the quest to determine sleep function.Neurobiology of sleep and circadian rhythms · 2025Article
- A valuation based theory of learning's origin and development.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2025Article
- Analysis of current status and influencing factors of health promotion behaviors among patients after PCI: based on health ecology theory.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Hogs sleep like logs: Wild boars reduce the risk of anthropic disturbance by adjusting where they rest.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- New Perspectives on Sleep Regulation by Tea: Harmonizing Pathological Sleep and Energy Balance under Stress.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Vitalism and cognition in a conscious universe.Communicative & integrative biology · 2022Article
- Romantic Love and Sleep Variations: Potential Proximate Mechanisms and Evolutionary Functions.Biology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although sleep is ubiquitous, its evolutionary purpose remains elusive. Though every species of animal, as well as many plants sleep, theories of its origin are purely physiological, e.g. to conserve energy, make repairs or to consolidate learning. An evolutionary reason for sleep would answer one of biology's fundamental unanswered questions. When environmental conditions change on a periodic basis (winter/summer, day/night) organisms must somehow confront the change or else be less able to compete in either niche. Seasonal adaptation includes the migration of birds, changes in honeybee physiology and winter abscission in plants. Diurnal adaptation must be more rapid, forcing changes in behavior in addition to physiology. Since organisms must exist in both environments, evolution has created a way to force a change in behavior, in effect creating "different" organisms (one awake, one asleep) adapted separately to two distinct niches. We sleep to allow evolving into two competing niches. The physiology of sleep forces a change to a different state for the second niche. The physiological needs for sleep are mechanisms that have evolved to achieve this goal.
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