It is well known that Consequences of not sleeping Well leads to changes in the mood that you yourself may have experienced, as well as a reduction in your performance at work.
However, the problems that can be generated by sleeping little are greater than a simple bad mood. Often, the risks of poor sleep are minimized.
However, regular sleep deprivation puts you at risk of serious medical illnesses such as heart problems, diabetes and obesity, as well Such as serious accidents.
A good amount and quality of sleep is essential for a long and healthy life.
14 Consequences of not sleeping for health
1-You can gain weight
Had you ever thought that sleeping could make you fat?
There are studies that show that people who sleep less than 7 hours a day are 30% more likely to To suffer obesity Than those who They sleep 9 hours daily.
This is explained by the fact that people with sleep deprivation (either quantity or quality) produce lower levels of leptin Hormone that warns us of satiety) and higher levels of ghrelin (the hormone that stimulates hunger).
This makes people with lack of sleep, have difficulties when feeling that they are full and that, therefore, they must stop eating, as well as A greater feeling of hunger.
So you know, if you want to lose weight, start by sleeping more.
2-Affects your immune system
Sleeping a few hours or having poor sleep quality can lead to more colds and more illnesses in general. Continued deprivation Of sleep weakens the defenses so that they are less able to defend the body from external agents.
While you sleep, your immune system produces antibodies and cells to ward off external substances such as bacteria and viruses. If you take hours off Sleep, the body has less time to produce the antibodies for Defend your body .
Therefore, deprivation of sleep generates that you are more prone to suffer from diseases, that it takes longer to recover from them and also more prone To suffer chronic diseases.
3-Affects Your Mental Health
As you may have noticed, the day that you have not slept well you feel irritable and in a bad mood. Imagine what you would be like if sleep problems were Continued.
It is not surprising, therefore, that continued lack of sleep (either in quantity or quality) leads to mood disorders such as depression Or the anxiety .
When people with anxiety and depression were asked how many hours they slept, most responded less than 6 hours a night.
The most common sleep disorder, the insomnia , Has the highest correlation with depression.
In 2007, a study conducted with a sample of 10,0000 people, saw that those suffering from insomnia were 5 times more likely to develop A depression than those who did not have insomnia. In fact, insomnia is one of the first symptoms in depression.
Insomnia and depression feed back into one another by creating a vicious circle in which sleep deprivation fuels depression and depression Generates more insomnia.
The upside is that treating sleep problems helps with depression and treating depression helps sleep problems.
4-Increases the probability of suffering from diabetes
At the physiological level, numerous studies have indicated that lack of sleep also has an effect on the ability to process glucose, which may High levels of blood sugar and promote the diabetes Or weight gain.
5-Reduce your sexual appetite
Sleep specialists explain that lack of sleep in both men and Sexual libido And decreases interest in sex.
In men with Sleep apnea (A respiratory problem that interrupts sleep), this Lack of sexual appetite is older.
A study published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism In 2002, suggests that many men with sleep apnea have levels of Testosterone lower.
They have found that men with sleep apnea produce less testosterone at night, which they are less likely to maintain Sexual relations.
6-It has consequences on your fertility
It has been shown that one of the possible causes in the difficulty of conceiving a baby is the lack of sleep in both men and women.
This explains why, lack of sleep over a long period of time, reduces the secretion of reproductive hormones that leads to Hinder conception.
So if you're trying to get pregnant and you can not, try to spend more time in the dream and see what happens.
7-Increases the number of accidents
The greatest disasters in history have been caused by the lack of sleep: in 1979 the Three Mile Island nuclear accident ; The massive spillage of Exxon Valdez tank oil; In 1986 the Chernobyl disaster , among others.
But lack of sleep is a problem that has devastating consequences that affects the safety of thousands of people every day on the roads. The Lack of sleep can reduce reaction time as much as driving under effects of alcohol .
The National Traffic Administration Of the United States estimates that fatigue is the cause of 100,000 car accidents and 1,550 fatal accidents each year. Most surprising is that these types of accidents occur more in people under 25 years of age.
Other studies show how lack of sleep, both quantity and quality, also leads to a greater number of occupational accidents. In a Study, workers who complained of excessive daytime sleepiness, had significantly more work accidents. They also had more days of Illness by accident.
8-Decreases learning ability
Sleep plays a fundamental role in cognitive and learning processes. Lack of sleep affects these processes in many ways. In first Place affects the Attention And alertness, to the concentration , Reasoning and Problem resolution . This makes it difficult to Of learning in an efficient way.
Second, the different phases of sleep play an important role in consolidating the information processed during the day. If you do not go through All phases of sleep and do not sleep as necessary, you probably will not be able to remember what you learned during the day. That is why it is said that Before an exam you will benefit more having slept well than spend all night studying.
9-Aging your skin
Many people have experienced a change in their skin such as puffy eyes, dark bags around the eyes and weakened skin after some nights without sleep.
If this lack of dream is chronic, it leads to a dull, dull and expressionless face.
When you do not sleep enough, your body secretes higher levels of the hormone Cortisol . In excessive amounts, cortisol impairs collagen Skin, which is the protein that keeps the skin smooth and elastic.
Lack of sleep also generates less secretion of growth hormone. When you are young, growth hormone is important so that You can grow and develop. As we age, this hormone helps you increase body mass, strengthen the skin and bones.
10-You become less sociable and more pessimistic
Of course, the irritability of the fatigue generated by the no sleep well Or not sleeping the necessary hours makes you enter a circle of Negativity in which you do not feel like socializing.
Think about the times you slept badly how you were during the day. Surely you were in a bad mood and all you wanted was to get home how much Before and get into bed.
11-Limit your creativity and innovation
Paul MCCARTNEY Wrote the Beatles hit"Yesterday"while sleeping. She dreamed the whole song, then woke up and played it on the piano to record it.
In 1964"Yesterday"became one of the most heard songs in the history of the music.
It is incredible to think how a simple idea dreamed one night could have impacted so much on a culture for decades. Even McCartney himself did not know I would have never imagined that she would go to bed that night and that hours later she would wake up to write a song that would make history. But there is more to I play in all this of what it seems.
The San Diego School of Medicine conducted another study in which they could verify that the phase REM promotes the creativity In problem solving.
According to this study, the creative capacity increases because during this phase of the dream new associative networks are formed that allow to establish connections and new relations between ideas without relation, thus generating new ideas. Basic key to creativity.
If you want to increase your creativity, take a nap and reach deep sleep can help you achieve it. He thinks that during the dream can occur moments of genius.
As Kekule himself said:"Let us learn to sleep and then we may find the truth."
12-You may have hallucinations
If sleep deprivation occurs over a long period of time, you may experience Hallucinations .
Depending on the time of sleep deprivation, approximately 80% of the normal population experience hallucinations on occasion.
Most are visual hallucinations. Unlike people with schizophrenia Which usually have auditory hallucinations, ie hear things Which are not there. Sleep deprivation can also generate paranoid thoughts.
In a study conducted in this sense, they found that 2% of a sample of 350 people with sleep deprivation during 112 hours experienced Temporally symptoms similar to those of paranoid schizophrenia.
Fortunately, these symptoms are resolved when they return to having a good sleep. So, if you see something that is not actually there for a period
Sleep deprivation, just rest and disappear.
13-Increases cardiovascular problems
Sleep plays a vital role in your body's ability to heal and repair your blood vessels and heart. Lack of sleep leads to increased risk To suffer from chronic health problems such as an increase in blood pressure or coronary heart disease.
According to a study by the Harvard Medical School With people with hypertension, a sleepless night enough, Experienced an increase in blood pressure during the following day.
14-Problems in the development of the fetus
The fetus needs great inputs of nutrients and oxygen. When sleep is interrupted, especially when the flow of Blood to the placenta, significant consequences can occur.
A total sleep deprivation or deep sleep fragmentation can reduce the amount of sleep growth hormone Secretary. With what you can Cause growth difficulties in the fetus that tries to develop.
As we know, a decline in oxygen levels in the mother can damage the fetus. When the mother's blood oxygen falls, the fetus reacts with Decelerations in the pumping rate of the heart.
And what other consequences have you noticed from lack of sleep?