Have you ever experienced the feelings on the next day of any sleepless night? You must have felt tired, cranky, and out of sorts. Whenever you fail to sleep the recommended 7 to 9 hours at night, you feel unsteady and irritable.
The long-term effects of sleep deprivation are many. It reduces your mental abilities and gives rise to many health hazards. It causes weight gain to a debilitated immune system. Here are the causes and effects of sleep deprivation. Let's find how does it affect specific body functions and systems.
Causes of sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation is the result of a consistent lack of sleep or reduced quality of sleep. Regularly, if you get less than 7 hours of sleep, it can ultimately affect your whole body. A primary sleep disorder may also cause sleep deprivation.
Our body requires sleep, as it requires air and food to work at its best. As you sleep, your body recuperates itself and improves its chemical balance. Your brain manufactures new connections and supports memory retention.
In the absence of enough sleep, your brain and body systems fail to function normally and you cannot lead a healthy life. According to a survey, too little sleep at night may increase the risk of early death. Here are some clear signs of sleep deprivation.
- excessive sleepines
- irritability
- daytime fatigue
- yawning
Some stimulants, for example, caffeine, aren’t sufficient to reduce the need for sleep. Actually, these can make sleep deprivation worse by hindering to fall asleep at night. As a result, you may suffer from a cycle of night-time insomnia followed by daytime caffeine intake to compensate for the lost long stretches of shut-eye.
In disguise, chronic sleep deprivation can affect the internal systems of your body and results the above described signs and symptoms. Here are some systems of our body that get affected by sleep deprivation.
Effects of sleep deprivation on human body
Central nervous system
The central nervous system is the information road of your body. Sleep is essential for its proper functioning, but long-lasting insomnia can disrupt the usual sending of information.
When you sleep, pathways get formed between nerve cells (neurons) in your brain that assist you to remember new information that you’ve learned newly. As sleep deprivation leaves your brain tired, it fails to do its duties perfectly. Additionally, you may face difficulties to concentrate or to learn new things. Also, the signals sent by your body may be delayed, and it may decrease your coordination and increase your risk for accidents.
Besides these, sleep deprivation also adversely affects your mental abilities and emotional state. So, you may feel more irritated or you may have mood swings. It can also hamper decision-making processes and creativity. If sleep deprivation continues for a long duration, you will have hallucinations for example, you see or hear things that aren’t there. It can also trigger obsession in people who have bipolar disorder. At the same time, you may experience other psychological risks such as:
- anxiety
- depression
- impulsive behaviour
- paranoia
- suicidal thoughts
You may also result in experiencing microsleeps in the day. In day time, you’ll fall asleep for a few seconds or minutes without acknowledging it. Mostly microsleep is out of your control and can be very dangerous if you’re driving. Similarly, it can leave you more disposed to injury due to trips and falls.
Respiratory system
The connection between sleep and the respiratory system goes both ways. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), the night time breathing disorder can disturb your sleep and reduce its quality. Thus, you wake up throughout the night and causes sleep deprivation and you are more prone to respiratory infections like the common cold and flu. Besides these, sleep deprivation also worsens respiratory diseases.
Immune system
At the time of sleeping, your immune system generates defensive, infection-fighting substances like cytokines. The immune system uses these substances to fight foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. Alternatively, cytokines help you sleep, supplying your immune system extra energy to protect your body against illnesses.
Sleep deprivation stops your immune system from building up its forces. In the absence of enough sleep, your body may fail to defend invaders, and you may also need longer to recover from illness. Additionally, long-term sleep deprivation leads to chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.
Cardiovascular system
Sleep also has impacts on the heart and blood vessels. Adequate sleep not only keeps heart and blood vessels healthy, but also maintains your blood sugar, blood pressure, and inflammation levels. Also, it plays a vital role in improving your body’s capability to restore and repair the blood vessels and heart. Studies reveal that people who don’t sleep enough have more chances to get cardiovascular disease. It has been seen that people having insomnia are at more risk of heart attack and stroke.
Digestive system
Alongside eating excessively and not exercising, sleep deprivation is another hazard for becoming overweight. Sleep influences the levels of two hormones, leptin and ghrelin, that regulate feelings of hunger and fullness.
Leptin informs your brain that you’ve had plenty to eat. But due lack of sleep, leptin decreases and ghrelin, the appetite stimulant increases. So that, fluctuation of these hormones could cause night-time snacking or may let someone overeat later in the night.
Additionally, a reduction in sleep can make you feel too tired to exercise. Thus, less physical activity can increase your weight as you’re not burning sufficient calories and building muscle mass. Besides these, sleep deprivation also increases the release of higher levels of insulin after you eat. Thus, higher insulin levels encourage fat accumulation and augment your risk for type 2 diabetes.
Tag- Health, sleep deprivation
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