It’s been known for millennia that the human body accumulates waste as a result of day-to-day functioning, but it’s now recognized that the awake, active brain also builds up waste that negatively affects neural function if not removed.

Thankfully, it was recently discovered that the brain has a garbage removal mechanism.

“The glymphatic system is a brain-wide network of perivascular spaces that facilitates the clearance of waste products from the brain during sleep,” Jeffrey Iliff, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences/Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine, and researcher at the VA Puget Sound, Seattle, told Medscape Medical News .

This system “serves a similar function in the brain as the lymphatic system does in th

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