If you have ever spent a night turning and tossing on your bed not getting a second of sleep, you might know how exhausted and tired it makes you feel the next stay up all night either for studying, working or having fun. We are a generation who thinks staying up all night is cool and does not has any bad impact overall. Yet we don’t know that missing out on the necessary part of sleep can cause very serious health problems.
If you eat well, take good care of your diet, exercise daily but do not focus on getting at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night, there is no use of all of your prior efforts. Getting an adequate amount of sleep is essential for the human body to work. Lack of sleep can cause grumpiness, mood swings and health problems with serious consequences.
Every 8 out of 10 people suffer from poor sleep habits. The consequences of all these sleepless nights are much worse than just awful dispositions and absence of focus. A regular poor sleep pattern can put you in danger of genuine ailments which may include weight gain (obesity), serious heart diseases and diabetes. It abbreviates your future, shortening your life span. A good night’s sleep is certainly fundamental for a long and sound life.
Effects of sleep deprivation on health:
Lack of sleep depletes your psychological capacities and puts your physical health condition at genuine hazards. Science has proven that poor sleep has strong connections with a wide range of medical conditions from obesity to weakened immune system and so forth.
- Weight gain:
Concerning body weight, it might be that if you sleep, you lose. Sleep deprivation by all accounts is directly proportional to an expansion in yearning and craving, and potentially to obesity.
Sleep can affect the level of two hormones present in our body, leptin, and ghrelin, which control sentiments of appetite and completion. Leptin tells your mind that you have had enough to eat. If you are not getting enough sleep, your cerebrum decreases the level of leptin and increases the level of ghrelin, which is a hunger stimulant. The transition of these hormones could clarify late-night eating or why some people like eating more at night.
Our body secretes some hormones during sleep that helps to control hunger, glucose, energy metabolism and vitality digestion. Not getting enough sleep causes an imbalance in the levels of these hormones.
Lack of sleep can likewise fill you with too much exhaustion to even consider exercising. After some time due to no physical activity you start putting on weight since you are just building muscle mass.
- Depression:
Sleep disorders and sleep deprivation can add to the indications of depression over time. Science tells us that people who get diagnosed depression or anxiety issues are most likely to sleep less than five hours at night.
Insomnia is the most common and well-known sleep disorder. It is said to have strenuous connections with depression. Depression and insomnia feed on one another. A sleeping disorder is one of the principal side effects of depression.
Lack of sleep aggravates and intensifies depression making it harder to sleep. Treating sleep disorders can help with depression and its side effects and the other way around.
- Skin problems:
Losing sleep for just a few nights can make you look pale and have puffy eyes but there can be much more than that. Chronic sleep loss can prompt dull skin, wrinkles, fine lines, acne, pigmentation, scarring and dark circles under your eyes.
In case you are not getting enough sleep your body releases stress hormone “cortisol” in excess. This overabundance of cortisol breaks down the skin collagen, the protein that works to keep skin smooth and flexible.
Moreover, lack of sleep causes the body to discharge too minimal amount of human growth hormone. The human growth hormone advances development at a young age. As we age, it helps in strengthening our bones, thickening skin and increasing muscle mass.
- Weakened immune system:
Sleep and the immune system have strong connections. Our immune system is intended to shield us from colds, influenza, and different sicknesses, yet when it isn’t working appropriately, it fails to carry out its responsibility. The outcomes can cause a progressive increase in sick days.
The connection that our immune system and sleep has is not so straightforward. Our immune system is quite complex. It is made up of various kinds of proteins and cells that keep us safe from cold and flu. Lack of sleep stifles the functions of the immune system. The more sleep you lose, the more probable you are to diminish your body’s capacity to react to colds or other bacterial diseases.
- Heart diseases:
Losing sleep for a single night causes an increase in blood pressure for the rest of the next day. It also promotes hypertension. It explains the relationship between lack of sleep and heart diseases and strokes. Sleeping less than five hours a night increases the risk of getting heart problems. People who suffer from sleep apnea wake up at night several times which elevates blood pressure. Over time this can turn into chronic elevation in blood pressure causing hypertension, which is the leading cause of cardiovascular diseases. Treating sleep apnea can likewise help with blood pressure elevations, decreasing the risk of heart problems.
- Mood swings:
Sleepless nights make anyone irritable and moody. Getting insufficient sleep every night can cause long term mood disorders. People suffering from chronic sleep disorders experience more mental distress, anxiety, depression, feel sadder and get angry fast.
- Forgetfulness:
Sleep plays a very important part in your thinking and learning patterns. Sleep deprivation affects these cognitive processes in several ways. It damages your concentration, reasoning and problem-solving ability, making it progressively hard to learn efficiently. Lack of sleep also damages your memory and ability to remember things. If you want to keep your memory sharp, you should consider getting a lot of sleep.
How much sleep is vital for better health?
Most people need around 8 to 10 hours of good quality sleep a night to work appropriately. However, some need more some need less. What more important is that you discover how much sleep does your body needs to function properly and afterward attempt to accomplish it. When you are waking up feeling tired and spending your day looking for an opportunity to take a short nap, it is obvious that you are not getting enough sleep. There can be an assortment of constituents causing poor sleep incorporating state of health. However, mostly it is because of the poor sleeping habits.
You can try on some sleep hygiene tricks for improving your sleeping habits. Try your best to sleep and wake up simultaneously every day. Ensure that your surroundings and bedroom environment is appropriate for falling asleep. This implies turning off your computer, television and putting your phone aside.
When to visit a doctor?
If you are not getting enough sleep, are you doing it by choice or out of some necessity? If you cannot physically fall asleep because of sleep deprivation or any other medical issue, visit your doctor as soon as possible to perceive what medications and treatments are accessible. A doctor can prescribe some medications or share some sleep hygiene techniques, for example, to avoid caffeine consumption after lunch and alcohol intake from 6 hours of sleep time. Do not smoke before going to bed. You may likewise learn relaxation and cognitive-behavioral treatment methods for changing activities or contemplation that might be harming your sleeping ability.