What Happens to the Body When You Sleep?

Video Transcript

"Hello. My name is Dr. Robert Hernandez. I'm a psychologist in Miami, Florida, and I'm president and owner of Lafafalu Retreat House. There are several things that happen to the body when you sleep. First and foremost, the brainwaves actually change. During the day, you're going about your business and you're either having an alpha or a beta brainwave, which are very high and very fast in their frequency. When you get more into meditative sleep, or you're falling asleep, then you go into a theta brainwave, and very deep sleep levels, you'll even hit delta. These are excellent for your health, because what they're doing is they're increasing hormone production, especially melatonin, which is known to fight cancer cells, and also you achieve a sense of overall building up of the immune system, which that will help you fight different types of disease and healing of scar tissue and things of that nature, and when you wake up, you're able to handle better the challenges of the next day. So, while you're sleeping, that doesn't mean that your body completely shuts down. That actually means your body starts to work and create itself to face the challenges of the following day."