11 Dangers Of Sleep Deprivation

Lack of sleep can make you grumpy, foggy, ruin your sex life, memory, health, looks, and even the ability to lose weight. Here are 11 serious., though not the only, effects of sleep loss.1. Sleepiness Causes Accidents
Sleep deprivation was a major factor in the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, and the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill, as well as the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, and others. Sleep deprivation is a public safety hazard every day on the road. Drowsiness slows reaction time as much as drunk driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that fatigue and sleep loss is a cause in 100,000 auto crashes and 1,550 crash-related deaths a year in the U.S. and this problem is greatest among people under 25 years old.
Sleep loss and poor-quality sleep also lead to accidents and injuries in the work place. Workers who suffer daytime sleepiness have significantly more work accidents, particularly repeated work accidents.
2. Sleep Loss Dulls Cognitive Processes
Sleep plays a critical role in the thinking and learning processes. Deprivation of sleep hurts these cognitive processes in many ways. It seriously impairs attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving, making it more difficult to learn efficiently.
More important, during the night, various sleep cycles play a role in sorting, filing, and consolidating memories in the mind. If you don’t get sufficient sleep, you won’t be able to recall what you learned and experienced during the day.
3. Sleep Deprivation May Lead To Very Serious Health Problems
Chronic sleep loss can put you at risk for:
Heart disease
Heart attack
Heart failure
Irregular heartbeat
High blood pressure
Stroke
Diabetes
It is estimated that 90% of people with insomnia usually also have other serious health conditions.
4. Lack of Sleep Kills Sex Drive
Sleep-deprived men and women report lower libidos and thus less interest in sex. Depleted energy, sleepiness, and increased tension and depression caused by sleep loss may increase sexual dysfunctions. Furthermore, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2002 suggests that many men with sleep apnea also have low testosterone levels. In the study, nearly half of the men who suffered from severe sleep apnea also secreted abnormally low levels of testosterone
5. Sleepiness Can Cause Severe Depression
The sleep disorder, insomnia, has the strong link to depression. In a 2007 study of 10,000 people, those with insomnia were five times more likely to develop depression as those without. Also, insomnia is frequently the first symptom of depression.
6. Lack of Sleep Ages You And Your Skin
Most people have experienced sallow skin and puffy eyes after just a few nights of missed sleep, but chronic sleep loss can lead to lackluster skin, fine lines, and more permanent dark circles under the eyes. Furthermore when you don’t get enough sleep, your body releases more of the stress hormone cortisol, which in excess amounts can break down skin collagen, the protein that keeps skin smooth and elastic.
Serious sleep loss also causes the body to release too little human growth hormone, which promotes growth when we’re young. In adults as we age, it helps increase muscle mass, thicken skin, and strengthen bones. It is an important part of normal tissue repair rejuvenating the wear and tear of the day on our bodies.
7. Sleep Deprivation Makes You Forgetful
If you’re trying to keep your memory sharp, best try getting plenty of sleep. Brain events called “sharp wave ripples” are responsible for consolidating memory. These ripples also transfer learned information from the hippocampus to the neocortex of the brain, where long-term memories are stored. These ripples occur mostly during the deepest levels of sleep.
8. Losing Sleep Can Make You Gain Weight
Chronic lack of sleep seems to be related to increased hunger and appetite, and can lead to obesity. According to a 2004 study, people who sleep less than six hours a day were up to 30 percent more likely to become obese than those who slept seven or more hours. Ghrelin stimulates hunger and leptin signals satiety to the brain suppressing appetite, and shortened sleep time is associated with decreases in leptin and an elevations in ghrelin.
Not only does sleep loss appear to stimulate appetite, it also stimulates cravings for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods.
9. Lack of Sleep May Increase Risk of Death
British researchers looked at how sleep patterns affected the mortality of more than 10,000 British civil servants over two decades. The results showed that those who had cut their sleep from seven to five hours or less a night nearly doubled their risk of death from all causes, and in particular, lack of sleep doubled the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
10. Sleep Loss Impairs Judgment
Lack of sleep can affect our interpretation of events, reducing our ability to make sound judgments. We may not assess situations accurately and thus not act on them wisely. Sleep-deprived people seem to be especially poor in judgment when assessing what lack of sleep is doing to them. Sleep studies show if you think you’re doing fine on less sleep, you’re probably wrong. Over time, people who are getting six hours of sleep, instead of seven or eight, begin to feel that they’ve adapted to that sleep deprivation, but if you look at how they do on tests of mental alertness and performance, they rapidly go downhill. There’s a point in sleep deprivation when we lose contact with how impaired we are.
11. Sleep Deprivation Impairs Our Body’s Ability To Repair Itself
It is during sleep that our bodies rejuvenate and repair the damages of the day or sickness. Impaired sleep can cause prolonged healing time and even prevent complete recovery.
It is extremely important that the ailing body gets sufficient and sound sleep.