Do we save energy while sleeping?

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Do we save energy while sleeping?

sleeping dormice

A couple of dormice in hibernation

Although there is no movement when we are asleep, our body consumes some amount of energy. We need this energy because the brain, the heart and other organs keep working even when we are asleep. This energy comes from the food we eat and is measured in calories. The number of calories in different foods is different. People doing hard labour need more calories than people who don’t. Marmots (Marmota) and dormice (family Gliridae) use this trick, for instance, in winters. They have a winter sleep of one month, during which they consume very little  energy. They can thus live on food eaten earlier and can also survive at places where food is scarce because of frost and snow. (image source)

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Ayan Chakravarty

Name: Ayan Chakravarty; Home City: Kolkata, India; Role in the website: Content editor and Adviser; Academic Specializations: Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Zoology, Bioinformatics;