It is a common affair to ignore bedtime. A late night here and there is not a real matter of concern, but when you start skimping on sleep night after night, it becomes a real problem.
Sleep is essential and lack of it can lead to sleep deprivation, which can affect both your physical and mental health. Over time, it can lead to chronic health problems and negatively impact your quality of life.
You need sleep as much as you need to breathe and eat. The amount of sleep that a person needs varies from one person to another.
However, this duration is contingent on genetic and physiological factors. Age, s*x and sleeping patterns are also important factors that need to be considered.
If you regularly run short on sleep because of a busy family life, work load or other factors, it’s important to adjust your schedule to allow for adequate sleep and prevent the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
Here are 10 dangerous side effects of not getting enough sleep.
1. Affects Your Memory and Brain
When you have a sleepless night, there is a high chance that you’ll have difficulty with concentration and focus the next day. Proper sleep is essential for cognitive health and it plays an important role in thinking and learning.
Lack of sleep can impair attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning and problem solving. This in turn affects your learning capacity. It can also negatively impact both your short- and long-term memory.
For your brain to function properly, be sure to get enough shut-eye.
2. Harms Your Heart
Sleep plays a vital role in your body’s ability to heal and repair your blood vessels and heart.
The effects of sleep deprivation on neural circulatory control. The study found that sleep deprivation results in increased resting blood pressure and decreased muscle sympathetic nerve activity.
People who sleep less than 6 hours have a greater risk of coronary heart disease and stroke as compared to those sleeping 7 to 8 hours per night.
At the same time, too much sleep also results in poor heart health.
Looking at how sleep deprivation affects your heart, it’s very obvious that sleeping less than 6 hours a night is definitely not good.
3. Weakens Your Immunity
Sleep deprivation can also affect your immune system, which is designed to protect you from infections like the common cold, the flu and other ailments.
When the immune system is not functioning properly, your body becomes susceptible to attacks by virus and bacteria and you have to deal with more sick days.
When you sleep, your immune system releases proteins called cytokines and other infection-fighting antibodies that protect your body against an infection or inflammation.
As lack of sleep may make you more prone to catching colds and the flu, it’s important to take steps to help you enjoy proper sleep.
4. Causes Depression
Sleep deprivation is frequently linked to depression. It leads to significant alterations in brain neurotransmitter functioning, which is one of the reasons behind depression. At times, depression can also impact a person’s ability to fall asleep.
People diagnosed with depression are more likely to sleep less than 6 hours at night. In fact, insomnia is often one of the first symptoms of depression.
If you are suffering from depression and having trouble sleeping well, be sure to talk with your doctor about it. It may actually be contributing to your condition.
5. Makes You Gain Weight
A regular sleep routine helps you maintain a regular appetite and hunger schedule. When you sleep less than what your body needs, there is an increase in the production of the hormone ghrelin. This hormone stimulates hunger and reduces the production of leptin, which suppresses appetite.
Thus, sleep deprivation can affect appetitie control and energy metabolism, in turn contributing to significant weight gain. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin and increased body mass index.
If you do not control your appetite and enjoy much-needed sleep, it can lead to obesity over time. Obesity in itself increases the risk of several diseases.
6. Raises the Risk of Diabetes
Long-term sleep deprivation, and even getting too much sleep, raises your risk of developing chronic diseases, including diabetes.
A sleep duration of 6 hours or less, or 9 hours or more, is associated with increased prevalence of diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose intolerance. The negative impact of sleep deprivation on metabolic and endocrine functions. Diabetes is a metabolic disorder.
Your body’s reaction to sleep deprivation is similiar to insulin resistance (when cells fail to use the blood glucose regulating hormone insulin efficiently), a precursor to diabetes.
Plus, insufficient sleep is linked to weight gain, which is a potential risk factor for diabetes.
7. Damages Skin
Just one night of poor sleep can cause puffy eyes, dark circles under the eyes and sallow skin. So, just imagine how much damage your skin has to bear due to severe sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation has a direct impact on the skin’s elasticity. An improper sleep pattern leads to excessive stress, which causes the body to produce more of the hormone cortisol. This hormone breaks down the protein in the skin that keeps it elastic and smooth.
Less skin elasticity can make your dark under eye circles, wrinkles and fine lines appear more noticeable. In addition, sleep deprivation reduces the skin’s ability to recover after sun exposure.
Poor sleep quality is associated with increased signs of intrinsic aging, diminished skin barrier function and lower satisfaction with appearance.
If you want to look young and healthy, do not comprise on your beauty sleep.
8. Leads to Early Death
Like breathing, sleep is a fundamental human need. It is not possible to survive for long without sleep as several nights of sleep deprivation can lead to more than 700 genetic changes that could significantly affect your health.
In fact, those who do not get adequate rest and sleep on a regular basis have higher mortality rates than those who regularly get enough sleep.
If you wish to live long, do not compromise on your sleeping time.
9. Leads to Fatigue-Related Accidents
Serious accidents are very often linked to a poor sleep schedule and fatigue. Drowsy driving, the dangerous combination of sleepiness and driving or driving while fatigued, can lead to accidents on the roads.
Sleep deprivation impairs coordination, causes longer reaction times, impairs judgment, and impairs memory and the ability to retain information. All these factors affect driving ability, increasing the risk of accidents.
10. Kills Your S*x Drive
Sleep deprivation even leads to loss of interest in s*x. Lack of sleep has a direct impact on a person’s energy level and even leads to more tension, which indirectly affects the sex life of both men and women.
Moreover, men suffering from sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder that interrupts sleep, tend to have lower testosterone levels, which can lower libido.
Lower levels of testosterone results in a lack of s*x drive.
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