Reportedly, 4 out of 10 Australians are sleep deprived. Unfortunately, not many people realize just how crucial sleep is.
Did you know that inadequate sleep can wreak havoc on your health and your relationships?
How so? Here are five things that could happen to you when you fail to get enough sleep.
1. Your Immunity is Impaired
Lack of sleep affects your immunity.
Studies have shown that lack of adequate sleep can make one more prone to diseases. It can also make it harder for you to recover from an illness.
This can be explained by a reduction in the production of cytokines.
When you are under stress, sick or have an inflammation, you need more cytokines to help your body heal. Unfortunately, when you are sleep deprived, the number of these protective proteins produced decreases.
Similarly, the production of infection-fighting cells and antibodies reduces when you do not get enough sleep.
On the long term, sleep deprivation will increase your risk for heart disease and diabetes.
2. Your Heart Takes a Beating
Chances of coronary heart disease and suffering a stroke are significantly higher in people who fail to get adequate sleep.
This is regardless of age, exercising habits, weight and gender.
While it's not clear why this is so, researchers believe that sleep deprivation disrupts biological processes such as inflammation, blood pressure and glucose metabolism.
Heart issues from lack of sleep cut across all ages. Adolescents with poor sleep habits have higher BMI's, higher cholesterol levels, higher blood pressure and an increased risk of hypertension.
3. It Affects Brain Function
The amount of sleep you get affects brain functions such as memory and recall, problem-solving, reasoning and decision making.
When you start noticing such issues, it is important to review your sleep patterns.
Simple things such as getting a mattress topper can be all you need to do to improve your sleep quality. One of the things that can make a difference is a mattress topper. But what does a mattress topper do?
It is everything you need to soften a hard bed. It also provides better support to a sagging one.
If your sleep problems stem from an uncomfortable bed, this is one of the best ways of remedying the situation.
4. Your Sex Drive Diminishes
Additional studies into sleep have shown that sleep deprivation causes a dip in testosterone, which leads to low libido in men.
Biological causes aside, lack of sleep also causes fatigue, when in turn makes one too tired for sex.
This can ultimately cause problems in relationships.
5. You Gain Weight
Lack of sleep can cause one to pile on the pounds, which might lead to obesity.
Inadequate sleep interferes with the production of the hormones leptin and ghrelin. These two hormones regulate feelings of hunger and satiety.
Leptin sends signals to your brain, letting it know you are full. Ghrelin, on the other hand, is an appetite stimulant.
When your body is low on sleep, the brain increases ghrelin and reduces Leptin. This explains why people tend to overeat and over snack late into the night.
Without much activity at night, you do not get to burn these calories. Your body, therefore, stores most of what you eat, leading to weight gain.
Sleep deprivation also causes your body to release higher amounts of insulin after meals which places you at a higher risk for type 2 diabetes.
Re-evaluate Your Sleep Patterns
As you can see, not getting enough sleep wreaks havoc on your health and affects your overall quality of life.
Moving forward, it would be prudent for you to journal your sleep pattern and evaluate if you are getting enough sleep or not.
