How does the brain rest, when we rest?

The brain, like the heart and lungs inside our body, never ‘rests’. What we generally call as ‘rest’ is merely a change of activity. A change from an activity we are currently exhausted with, to something we look forward to. The brain works alike during awake as well as sleeping hours, albeit with a lesser intensity. read more

Our bodies need rest, but it’s the brain that needs sleep. What happens in the brain makes the difference between resting and sleeping. Merely resting can slow the heart rate and respiration, and decrease our adrenalin level. read more

In a recent thought-provoking review of research on the default mode network, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang of the University of Southern California and her co-authors argue that when we are resting the brain is anything but idle and that, far from being purposeless or unproductive, downtime is in fact essential to mental processes that affirm our identities, develop our understanding of human behavior and instill an internal code of ethics—processes that depend on the DMN. read more