Noted: Sleep “cleans up” the brain. When you sleep, your brain removes information you don’t need and consolidates what you learned that day. This makes room for new learning. After all, do you really need to remember what socks you wore, the joke you heard during first period, or what you ate for breakfast? Neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin found that many of our synapses shrink at night as the brain weeds out or “forgets” information that it no longer needs. And it’s not just memories that need to be cleaned up. According to the National Institutes of Health, sleep also flushes out toxins that accumulate during the day.