Blink if your brain needs a rest

This should immediately raise the question to stroke researchers. Survivors are incredibly fatigued. Should we be blinking more often to alleviate that? Ask your doctor and watch them squirm until they fall off their chair.

Blink if your brain needs a rest

Why do we spend roughly 10 percent of our waking hours with our eyes closed - blinking far more often than is actually necessary to keep our eyeballs lubricated? Scientists have pried open the answer to this mystery, finding that the human brain uses that tiny moment of shut-eye to power down.
The mental break can last anywhere from a split second to a few seconds before attention is fully restored, researchers from Japan's Osaka University found. During that time, scans that track the ebb and flow of blood within the brain revealed that regions associated with paying close attention momentarily go offline. And in the brief break in attention, brain regions collectively identified as the "Default Mode Network" power up.

This probably matches up with

Tired neurons caught nodding off in sleep-deprived rats

The rest at the link.