Losing your sleep might look good in movies and series, but that is not the case in real life. You might have an idea how it feels the next day when you spend your last night just turning and tossing yourself or counting sheep, but the counting goes on and on, and it’s already sun shining outside. Now it’s time for you to start your work. Not getting enough sleep is never a good idea because it’s not just about shutting your eyes for a few hours. It’s crucial from the health perspective of your body as well, because just like food and water are a necessity, sleep is also a necessity.
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The Negative Impacts On Health
Depriving yourself of sleep will not only affect your day, but it has long-term brain-damaging effects. Now sleeping for several hours will not be enough because the bad quality of sleep or disruptions to the sleep-wake cycle also affects your body.
Health Damaging Effects Of Sleep
The right amount of sleep varies from person to person, but for adults, it is recommended to have a good quality sleep of at least 7-9 hours daily. Otherwise, not just your next day, but your body will suffer every day. Let’s discuss some effects of not having enough sleep on your body.
Disruption In Central Nervous System
The pathway through which all the vital information travels throughout your body is called the central nervous system. It acts as a road connecting all your body parts, and damage to the road will affect your body. So to keep the pathway working, you need to sleep. The main reason to get enough sleep is to help your brain function smoothly. Sleep deprivation disrupts the proper functioning of your central nervous system as sending, receiving, and processing of information gets disturbed. Not having enough quality sleep exhausts your brain, and an exhausted brain can’t perform the way it should. The storing of vital information via neurons happens during sleep, and lack of sleep takes this process out of track.
Weaken immune system
While you sleep and rest, your immune system fastens the process of producing antibodies, cytokines, and many other protective and fighting substances. They help our body fight against diseases, sickness, and various infections. Sleep deprivation does not let your immune system work properly, as lack of sleep keeps it from developing and producing those fighting bodies. So when your body does not get enough sleep, it becomes more and more vulnerable to all those trespassers, which may cause some disease and sicken your body, and it may also happen that your body takes a long time to fight off that disease.
Risk of Respiratory problems
A nighttime breathing problem known as obstructive rest apnea (OSA) makes it difficult for you to have a good sleep and lower sleep quality. All this sleep loss makes you more helpless to respiratory problems like common cold and flu, but this becomes worse when you have respiratory diseases like chronic lung illness. So this is a relationship that goes both ways between your respiratory system and sleep. So taking care of both of them becomes very important for your health.
Hormonal Disorder
A lot of things are dependent on your sleep when it comes to the health of your body, and the production of hormones is one of them. At least 3 hours of continuous sleep is required for our body to produce testosterone, and not getting enough sleep may affect the production of the hormones. Growth hormone helps the body build muscle mass, fix cells and tissues in kids and adolescents, and sleep deprivation affects its production.
Skin aging
Skin aging is an issue faced by many people, and one of the major reasons for that is lack of sleep. Losing sleep for the long term may cause lackluster skin, fine lines, dark circles under the eyes, and many other skin issues. More stress hormones called cortisol are released when your body doesn’t get enough sleep and when cortisol is released in excess amounts breaks down the skin collagen, which is the protein that keeps skin smooth and elastic. So having good and quality sleep is necessary for having good and healthy skin.
Conclusion
Sleep deprivation can increase the risk of accidents and on-job injuries. The loss of quality sleep makes you lose concentration power and may also lead to a delay in sending messages or information to your body. Healthcanal.com clearly states that sleep spindles have been associated with memory formation in humans. Hence, lack of sleep also diminishes your ability to learn new things. Sleep deprivation for a longer period increases the risk of conditions like diabetes and heart diseases.
