Nowadays, sleep is not considered as a priority among most people due to their busy lifestyles. Everyone is chasing their dreams, working overtime, with the hope to achieve more. Therefore, they sleep less and with time the effects of lack of enough sleep will start to show. Feeling foggy and grumpy in the morning is a common effect of poor sleep. While you keep on experiencing sleep loss or less of it more effects are visible. This includes your looks, health, sex life and memory as the list is endless. Although, the mentioned are effects of consistent inadequate sleep. There are more serious and negative effects of sleep loss that are discussed in this article.
- It causes accidentsÂ
One of the things to hate about sleep loss is it causes accidents. Some of the big disasters in history were due to sleep deprivation among the workers. For instance, the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl among others. Also, it is a hazard to everyday safety on public roads. Lack of sleep makes you fatigued.Therefore, if you are driving due to slowed reaction time and your brain not alert you are prone to get into an accident. Not only on the roads, the accidents and injuries also happen on the job. Hence, when you experience excessive daytime sleepiness it is best to work on your sleep quality. This will prevent any future accidents and injuries.
- It leads to serious health problems
Having a good bed, a side sleeper mattress that suits you and a perfect sleep environment is one way to boost your sleep. However, you should utilize this to get good quality and quantity sleep to prevent any effects of sleep deprivation on your health. Health problems are among the serious effects thatyou can go through. Like heart disease, heart failure, and irregular heartbeat among others. All these are due to insomnia, sleep disorders, and chronic sleep loss. Those suffering from insomnia studies show that they have other health conditions that they suffer from. Therefore, making sleep a priority is a great way to boost your health.
- It causes depression
The lack of sleep is depressing. Especially, when it is constant, the symptoms of depression start to show. This is common among individuals who sleep less than six hours at night. Also, those who suffer from insomnia which is a common sleep disorder that is linked to depression. Therefore, if you do not prioritize sleep and are often experiencing sleep deprivation. The risk of getting depression is higher. Plus, depression and insomnia tend to feed on each other. This makes it a challenge to fall asleep aggravating the symptoms. Fortunately, through solving sleep issues it can help with depression and its symptoms and vice versa.
- It makes you forgetfulÂ
Do you want to boost your memory? Try getting adequate sleep daily. People who suffer from frequent sleepiness are very forgetful. This is because the brain did not get to recuperate during sleep to consolidate memories. This occurs during the deep levels of the sleep cycle. Hence, with constant lack of plenty of sleep, not only will you start forgetting short term memories but you will also forget long term memories. In case you are experiencing this or your teenager, spouse or colleague. Advise them to try sleeping more for it could be as a result of sleep deprivation.
- It impairs judgmentÂ
Sleep loss is known to impair judgment, especially about sleep. As it affects how you interpret events as you cannot make sound judgments either act on them wisely. For instance, they cannot access what lack of sleep is doing to them. Functioning on fewer hours of sleep are part of the norm today. However, if our day to day job needs you to be on par with your level of functioning. Then, it is a big disadvantage. The worst part is that after sleeping for certain fewer hours of sleep. The brain tricks you that you have adapted to sleep deprivation and you get used to it. Yet, you have poor performance and mental alertness. Therefore, there is a point in lack of enough sleep that you lose touch with how sleep deprived you are.
- It ages your skinÂ
It is evident that after a few days of missed sleep that you get puffy eyes and sallow skin. Nonetheless, this is not all that your skin will experience. Since studies show that for chronic sleep loss it leads to fine lines, dark under eye circles and lackluster skin. The reason behind this is the cortisol hormone that is the stress hormone that is released by the body once you don’t get enough sleep. While there is an excess of this hormone, it breaks down the skin collagen, the protein responsible to keep skin elastic and smooth. It is therefore important to watch your sleeping hours if you need your skin to look healthy continuously.
- It dumbs you down
To think and learn properly you need to get a boost from sleep. Since sleep deprivation affects the cognitive process in many ways. For instance, it impairs alertness, concentration, reasoning, attention, and problem-solving skills. Therefore, it gets challenging to learn efficiently. Also, as discussed above, lack of sleep makes consolidating memories in the mind challenging. Through this, you are unable to remember what you learned among other experiences that happened during your day or week long.
In conclusion, there are other negative effects of loss of sleep. Such as weight gain, low or no sex drive among others. Due to sleepiness, increased tension and depleted energy levels it causes men and women to have low libidos. Studies show that such effects among others mentioned above and more are known to create more complicated issues. Therefore, creating a sleep routine to follow and changing some sleep habits to boost your sleep quality and quantity is important. Additionally, visit your sleep doctor when you notice any of the above effects that are caused by sleep loss to get sleep advise.
