Sleep is your brain's best friend
You have a lymphatic system to flush out all the waste products that come from running the fairly efficient machine that is your body, day in and day out. However, your brain lacks all vessels for this system -- so now what?
Enter the incredible Cerebrospinal Fluid, or CSF. We used to just think of it as the cushion and nutrient supply for the brain and the spinal cord, but more recently we've discovered it frees the brain of waste from its 100 billion hardworking neurons.
When you are sleeping, your brain's cells will shrink and make room around the blood vessels that run throughout its entirety. CSF will rush through these canals and pick up the waste left behind after a long day of work.
This makes your brain run like a mean, clean, thinking machine. There are always times when we try to cheat the system, however. Study for finals overnighter, anyone?
It's hard to decide whether to get in those extra 3 chapters you put off, or a decent amount of sleep, but science is actually giving us proof that studying without sleep may be a futile effort.
Research is showing that the neuron pattern used during a study or learning period actually recreates itself during REM sleep. All of the time you had spent studying while awake will be automatically repeated in your brain while you rest before that exam.