Sleep is a universal phenomenon and an essential part of our daily routine. We all know that it helps in refreshing our body and brain. But it is interesting to know that it also helps in the synaptic pruning and memory consolidation in our brain. Every night, your brain would clear off unwanted neural matter and enhance its overall functioning.
But how much sleep do we actually need, and when can we call ourselves sleep-deprived? Researchers agree on the fact that there is a therapeutic window or an optimum sleep time that is necessary for physical and mental well-being.
However, there is no written figure on what the exact amount of time that is. The recommended amount of sleep time would depend on the amount of physical labour, stress, health and age of the individual. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine suggests that a person should get an average need 7–8 hours of undisturbed sleep for adults.
You are essentially sleep-deprived and fatigued when you show one or more of these signs:
- Droopy and aching eyes
- Mood swings
- Grogginess and Irritability
- Lose of focus and concentration
- Reduced productivity
- Extreme tiredness
- Intermittent yawning
However, with the prevalent MNC culture and round-the-clock work timings, getting even 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a big challenge. Most of us burn the midnight oil and end up tired, exhausted and fatigued. This sleep deprivation drains your health and makes you less productive and groggy.
There is a host of medical ailments linked with inadequate sleep ranging from obesity to weakening of the immune system. A sleep-deprived person would be able to notice its health impacts almost immediately. However, apart from these short-term effects, chronic sleep deprivation has some serious repercussions on your health. It interferes with your internal systems and alters the chemical balance in your body.
Impact of Sleep Deprivation on your Health
Here are some short and long term impacts sleep deprivation has on your body:
#1. Nervous System
This is one of the first parts of your body that faces the brunt of inadequate sleep. Your nervous system manages a truckload of information on a daily basis and needs its daily dosage of rest to keep functioning properly. When it doesn’t get the needed rest, it disrupts the way it sends and receives data.
The neurons that help in retaining newly formed memories won’t be able to function efficiently, and you would end up losing focus and forgetting things. You would have delayed transmission of data, and hence, your body would lose coordination. Continued sleep deprivation leads to hallucination, mood swings, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety issues.
Some people also experience a microsleep phenomenon where the body loses control and falls asleep for a few minutes or seconds. This can be highly dangerous if you are driving or operating any heavy machinery.
#2. Cardiovascular System
Adolescents who don’t get adequate sleep earlier in their life have a greater risk of heart disease later on. Sleep-deprived people have 48–50% increased risk of developing Coronary Heart Ailments and 20% risk of getting a stroke in the future.
Quality sleep slows down your heart rate and your blood pressure. This fall in pressure gives the heart the rest it needs and also eliminates the risk of coronary artery calcification in the longer run. The longer and more prolonged your Non-REM sleep, the more rested and relaxed your heart is.
#3.Hormonal Balance
Inadequate sleep causes a lot of disturbances in your hormone levels. The worst part is the fact that it is a vicious cycle that is difficult to get out of. Sleep deprivation alters your hormone levels and the altered hormone levels would further disrupt your sleep pattern.
Lack of proper sleep can create a cellular resistance to insulin secretion. This would alter your glucose levels, making you susceptible to type 2 diabetes in the longer run. It also increases the TSH levels in your body and results in hair loss, extreme fatigue, sensitivity to cold, muscle pain, and sudden weight gain.
Sleep deprivation also lowers the level of leptin and increases the level of ghrelin in your body. Leptin is responsible for suppressing appetite and communicates the feeling of fullness to your body. Ghrelin is the hunger-stimulating hormone and tells your body when it is time to eat. Lower leptin levels and elevated ghrelin levels will leave you feeling hungry in the middle of the night.
Ever wondered why you feel perpetually tired, but when you finally lie down, you are unable to sleep? This is because your body responds to excessive stress by producing higher levels of cortisol. To be able to sleep, you need a balance of melatonin (sleep-inducing hormone) in your body. However, extreme stress and sleep deprivation make your body produce more and more cortisol, thus disrupting your sleep pattern altogether.
Apart from this, inadequate sleep lowers the production of testosterone, estrogen and progesterone that results in low libido, concentration and energy levels in your body.
#4. Digestive System
While we are aware of the other ailments pertaining to inadequate sleep, only a few actually know the link between sleep and the digestive system. During the day, your body would need glucose to reach your organs. At night, the metabolism slows down, and your digestive system gets the rest it needs to function smoothly.
People who don’t get their daily dose of quality sleep are more prone to gastrointestinal diseases like GERD, acid reflux, indigestion, nausea, Irritable bowel syndrome, flatulence, and peptic ulcer syndrome.
Apart from the ghrelin/leptin imbalance in your body, which increases your appetite, your entire digestion process becomes compromised and slow with sleep inadequacy. You would tend to binge on junk or high-calorie foods leading to irregular weight gain, obesity and heartburn. Obesity and unprecedented weight gain would then lead to cardiac ailments and elevated blood pressure.
Sleep deprivation also causes inflammations in your intestinal tissue resulting in irritable bowel syndrome. Sometimes excessive stress and fatigue gives mixed signals to your brain and might trigger the fight-or-flight instinct. In such a case, all the nutrients would be redirected to critical organs like heart, lungs and muscles as a trigger to action mode and digestion of food would take a back seat. This would lead to constipation, indigestion and spasms in your stomach muscles due to the load of undigested food in your digestive tract.
#5. Respiratory System
Your breathing pattern undergoes a lot of change when you sleep. The way oxygen is transported into the lungs and carbon dioxide exhaled out of the system are altered during sleep. However, in the case of sleep-deprived people, there is a significant reduction in the vascular function of the body.
Constant bouts of sleep deprivation can result in obstructive sleep apnea that can alter your sleep pattern even further and prevent you from getting continued sleep throughout the night. Researchers also observed worsening of pre-existing respiratory ailments in sleep deprived individuals.
#6. Immunity
A healthy immune system is necessary to fight infections and disease. However, sleep deprivation compromises your immune system and makes you susceptible to infections, microbial invasions and a host of autoimmune diseases. It also delays your recovery process and prolongs your sickness.
We all know that our body fights infections when we sleep. The typical sign of your body waging war against foreign bodies is the rise in body temperature (fever). But when we are sleep deprived, our body is not able to slow down the other processes and fight infection.
When you sleep, a protein called cytokine is released into your system. This is responsible for protecting you against infections and germs. However, when you are sleep deprived, your body produces less of this protein, making you more vulnerable to infections.
In Conclusion
Sleep deprivation is a serious condition and is not just about feeling tired or exhausted the next day. Our body needs some time to replenish its energy and repair itself and devoid of that it would go on overdrive and burn itself out. While our body may learn to adapt itself to the inadequate sleep pattern and try to function, it can cause a series of serious health hazards in the longer run. So while you are burning the midnight oil with some extra caffeine, your body is working overtime and might breakdown on the slightest of triggers.
Sleep deprivation can be due to a variety of factors ranging from bad lifestyle choices, excessive stress, physical and mental ailments or some underlying medical condition. Analysing the root cause of this can help you ward off any unwanted repercussions on your health and stay active and healthy.
So the next time you feel your brain shutting down without notice or your mind losing focus every minute, it is time you head back home and give your tired eyes and brain the rest it deserves. Keep yourself away from sugary or carbohydrate-rich foods before bedtime and go easy on the caffeine. This will help you in sleeping better and quickly.
