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The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Your Body

Adequate sleep is a necessity to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In fact, lack of sleep can have damaging effects on your well-being. In the article The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Body, Healthline.com shares a detailed list of the physical and mental effects of sleep deprivation.

When you’re deprived of sleep, your brain can’t function properly, affecting your cognitive abilities and emotional state. If it continues long enough, it can lower your body’s defenses, putting you at risk of developing chronic illness.

According to Harvard Medical School, studies show that sleeping less than five hours a night increases the risk of death from all causes by about 15 percent. Sleep deprivation is dangerous to your mental and physical health and can dramatically lower your quality of life.

Sleep deprivation can effect your central nervous System, immune System, respiratory system, digestive system, and cardiovascular system. The image below contains 16 effects of sleep deprivation.

To read more about The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Body visit Healthline.com or click here.

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Important:
The Sleep Blog does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Instead, this website provides general information for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider if you have questions or concerns regarding any medical condition or treatment.

Five Common Sleep Disorders

A good night’s sleep is everybody’s requirement, as it helps in refreshing the mind and preparing the body for the next day’s energy demands. However, quite a lot of people these days are not blessed enough to enjoy a sound sleep and suffer from various sleep disorders. Tossing about in bed, easily disturbed sleep, and difficulty breathing may leave many of you frustrated and irritated apart from affecting your overall health. Though temporary sleep disturbances may be due to stress or bad lifestyle habits, such as consuming caffeine or alcohol, or may be due to certain medications or other illnesses, prolonged sleep deprivation is a reason of worry and needs to be dealt with immediately. We are listing the five most common sleep disorders for your reference and ways to deal with them.

Insomnia: Insomnia, or sleeplessness, is the most commonly encountered sleep disorder and is mainly due to stress, anxiety, depression, or certain dietary or lifestyle choices. Though temporary insomnia usually goes away gradually on its own, it is the chronic, or long-lasting, insomnia that requires proper attention. The patient experiences difficulty falling or staying asleep or wakes up at odd, early hours and is unable to sleep again. Curing insomnia is relatively easy, as it mainly requires certain routine modifications, such as changing sleeping habits, adopting relaxation techniques, eating a light meal before going to bed, etc.
Sleep Apnea: This is a type of disorder wherein the breathing is interrupted during sleep, waking the patient. A suffocated feeling or gasping for breath during sleep might indicate some obstruction in the respiratory passage, leading to difficulty in breathing. The condition can turn fatal and thus, the treatment includes a CPAP device that delivers a constant flow of air to regulate breathing in sleep.
Restless Leg Syndrome: People with this disorder feel abnormal sensations in their legs while resting at night or during sleep urging them to move the limbs constantly. As movement relieves the tingling, burning, pricking, or crawling sensation experienced in the legs, patients may be required to get up and move around for relief, thus affecting their sleep. Certain medications or limiting the intake of caffeine or alcohol help in overcoming this disorder.
Narcolepsy: This is characterized by excessive sleepiness during the day, causing uncontrollable spells of sleep even while talking. It is a neurological disorder affecting the brain mechanism that controls sleep and wakefulness and is a serious condition that requires adequate medical treatment.
Night Terrors: Generally affecting children of ages 3 to 12 years, night terrors are manifested by frequent episodes of crying or screaming in sleep due to fear. The child appears to be awake as he/she cries while sitting up in bed with open eyes. Though it does not affect the sleep, night terrors can be dangerous, as the child can jump out of the bed or fight or beat those around. The condition may resolve on its own as the child grows older, but in case where it persists or worsens or if the aggressive patient becomes uncontrollable, medical intervention is essential.

Sleep deprivation can lead to a disrupted lifestyle and has serious implications on the health of the patient and, therefore, needs to be checked at the earliest sign.

Sleep Deprivation

We live in a society where everyone has something to prove and success is somehow confused efficiency, and in turn less sleep. There are people who go to sleep at midnight and who wake up at 4:00 a.m., and they are the examples of this society. Following their model, there are many more who want to become successful; therefore, a new culture has been formed in this society, which is the culture of sleep deprivation. Additionally, besides those who deliberately sleep less hours per night, there are also those who can’t get a good night’s sleep, waking up more tired than when they went to sleep. In both cases, there is a single problem, which is called sleep deprivation.

Even if there are some people who believe that they can function properly without much sleep, this is a wrong belief because sleep is actually needed to regenerate certain parts of the body, among which the most important is the brain.

Causes of Sleep Deprivation

One of the most popular causes of sleep deprivation is lack of time, mainly because people feel that they don’t have enough time in order to complete their everyday tasks. On the other hand, there are people who go to sleep at proper hours, yet they don’t get a good night’s sleep. In most of the cases, they don’t even know what is actually disturbing their sleep. One of the causes is the fact that many people wake up in the night without realizing it. Even though some of these wake-ups are normal, the majority will leave you exhausted.

Among other causes, there are pets in bed, alcohol, or medication. Additionally, any mild pain is able to cause serious sleep disorders; therefore, you should treat yourself as soon as possible.

Dangers of Sleep Deprivation

One of the most recurring effects of sleep deprivation is decreased performance during everyday tasks. Additionally, memory will also suffer, while stress will become even more present. Therefore, most people who suffer from sleep deprivation will feel these negative effects. However, the real dangers are diseases, such as heart attack, obesity, stroke, psychiatric problems, etc. Even if these risks don’t feel quite real, with time, they can happen; therefore, they should be avoided. If you feel that you are tired because you are not sleeping well, you should definitely consult a doctor.

Cures for Sleep Deprivation

One way of making sure that you have a good night’s sleep is to sleep in complete darkness. Nowadays, there are too many light sources that induce wrong signals to the brain. Therefore, you should cover your windows and any other light source that might disturb your sleep. There are many people who keep their phones right next to their bed. This is a bad habit since the electrical devices may interrupt the sleep process. The final step is to reserve your bed for sleeping, making sure that it’s the only activity that occurs in bed.