Today’s society is all about modern conveniences that are supposed to save time but in actuality, they just end up giving us more to do. What’s this have to do with sleep? People today are sleeping less than seven hours a night because of all that they have to do. Compare that to less than a 100 years ago when people slept an average of nine hours a night! Before you continue skimping on sleep because of all that you have to do, consider the effects sleep deprivation has on your body.
Physical Effects:
Many people are aware of the obvious effects that not enough sleep causes, such as lack of energy, fatigue, irritability, and exhaustion but they are less aware of the serious effects. Our bodies were created to need an adequate amount of sleep each night so that our body can be repaired. Sleep provides the recharging and repairing that our bodies require. Here are some other problems that your body will feel from lack of sleep:
We need to process glucose in a proper way to avoid high blood sugar levels which is a symptom of type II diabetes. Not only does lack of sleep disrupt the proper processing of glucose, it’s going to also cause this glucose to be stored as fat which can lead to weight gain.
A symptom that will be noticeable to not only you but everyone else is aging signs. You’ll have increased symptoms of again that will become noticeable to everyone.
Our body needs to have a certain core temperature to function properly so if you aren’t getting enough sleep your core body temperate will be lowered causing proper functioning to be impaired.
Less consistent heart beat.
Mental Effects:
Although a sleep deprived person probably won’t come across as a drunk person, they can show signs that drunk people tend to have such as slurring of words, stuttering, etc. This is assumed to be a cause of the speech center (of the brain) being shut down and a less capable part takes over.
Some sleep deprived people have noticed that their short term memory has increased. This may not seem like such a bad thing but the problem is that lack of sleep affects your long term memory. You will have a decreased ability to access older memories and convert long term to short term memory.
You might not as well try to problem solve because you will have a decrease in your creativity especially when it comes to problem solving! Sleep deprivation causes a person to be less accurate and slower when solving problems.
Another effect that a sleep deprived person shares with a drunk person is slow reaction time and decreased judgment.
Emotional Effects:
Higher levels of anxiety and stress than a person who gets a good night’s sleep.
A person suffering from sleep deprivation will see the glass half empty rather than half full. In other words they have a pessimistic attitude.
Sleep deprived people tend to suffer from depression and sadness.
And if all of the above weren’t bad enough, a person that hasn’t slept enough will tend to suffer from extreme anger. Sleep deprivation has been indicated to be a major cause of road rage. That sheds a new light on the road rage epidemic!
Each and every person was created differently so not everyone will require the same amount of sleep. Some people find that they only need seven or eight hours of sleep a night to feel rested while others may find they need more. Follow what your body is telling you. If you are getting a lot of sleep but find that you never feel rested, see your doctor because you could suffer from a sleep disorder such as sleep apnea. It may be difficult to find the time for a good night’s sleep with your schedule but it’s important because it will make you feel better and more efficient with the time you have while your awake.
For several years I dealt with the effects of too little sleep and unfortunately my family did too. The effects are real and so are the reactions that accompany. My best advise is to help the person that needs sleep to get it so they can get back to themselves and deal with this problem in their right mind.