Lack of sleep is not normal as people assume. It is a disorder that can lead to serious health effects if not treated accordingly and as soon as possible. If you find that you lack sleep at night, visit a doctor and get to know what is wrong. You could be dealing with something beyond what you can manage, and a physician will help diagnose what is wrong. Sleep apnea can be caused by stress, trauma, PTSD among many other things. What happens to your body when you are severely sleep deprived?
1. Weight gain
If you are trying to lose some weight, you don’t want to lack sleep either. Sleepless people are mostly anxious, and they are also hungrier. They tend to eat more calories than the person who sleeps throughout the night. When you don’t sleep, the body assumes that you are not sleeping because you are searching for food and for this reason, it stores more fat in the body making you gain weight. Lack of sleep adds pounds to the waistline distorting your figure.
2. High risk of blood pressure
Sleep plays a significant role in the body’s ability to heal and repair the blood vessels and the heart. If you are sleep deprived, you are at a higher risk of getting chronic health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. According to research by Harvard Medical School, people with hypertension are most affected. A night without enough sleep can elevate their blood pressure for a whole day.
3. Lack of sleep dumbs you down
Your body needs to rest and relax after a full day of work. If you are stressed, your body calms down and relaxes when you are asleep. Sleep plays a crucial role in everyday learning and thinking, and lack of sleep will hurt these cognitive abilities in numerous ways. If you are sleep deprived it impairs your attention, thinking, critical thinking, problem solving and reasoning. This makes learning difficult. Sleep also plays a part in consolidating memories in mind. If you don’t get enough sleep, you might end up forgetting what you learned.
4. Lack of sleep is depressing
Your mind needs to relax and reset after a while, and this is the time when you sleep. Have you ever worked in a busy environment such that you reach a certain point and you feel you need to relax? Your body is not so tired, but your mind is so tired you can’t think clearly?This is because even the brains can get exhausted sometimes. Insomnia or lack of sleep is one of the causes of depression. Remember the only time your brain is not active is when you are asleep, and if you don’t sleep, your mind is active, and you are thinking throughout the night.
5. Causing accidents
Sleep loss is a serious safety hazard today. When you are feeling sleepy especially when driving, it causes you to have low response time the same way drinking alcohol does. When you are sleep deprived, your body has a lot of fatigue, and it has been a cause of 100,000 auto crashes and 1500 crash-related deaths in one year in the US alone.
Sleep Apnea Centre Canada
Sleep loss is a serious health condition that can lead to so many other health-related risks in life. Get diagnosed to avoid these dangers caused by lack of sleep or sleep disorders today and be on the safe side. Take our OSA pre-screening tool now!