The thing about sleep is that if you don’t manage to get enough, you have to end up paying for this in so many ways. In fact lack of sleep tends to affect every part of your body starting from the head and down to the toe. In fact just seven days without proper sleep can bring about changes to as many as 700 genes. This can be a wakeup call to those people who have been stinting on their sleep. In fact the damage starts happening from the very first night.
One night of bad sleep:
This could mean that you could be having more pangs of hunger and that too accompanied with cravings for the wrong kind of foods.
It could also mean that you slack off while driving leading to dangerous situations. Your reflexes are not as sharp as they should be.
You also do not look as good as you should and also start feeling cranky. What they say about sleep being linked to beauty is pretty correct. In fact research has even shown that not sleeping well makes your skin age faster.
Lack of sleep can lead to lowered resistance that means that you are more likely to catch a cold. Apparently as you sleep your immune system gives out cytokines which are proteins that not only help in proper sleep but also increase immunity.
Another problem due to lack of sleep could also be loss of brain tissue according to some research.
You are also likely to become really emotional as lack of sleep can make the emotional center in the brains to react more and thereby making you react more to emotional situations.
Lack of sleep also means that you start having problems with your memory and attention span. This means that you may find yourself forgetting things or not able to concentrate as intensely as you used to before.
After Being Sleep Deprived For A Longer Time:
Your risk for getting a stroke is increased. People who get less than six hours of sleep are more likely to see stroke like symptoms when compared to people who slept 7 to 8 hours a night.
The chances of putting on weight and becoming obese increases. As was mentioned earlier, the risk of people eating more and less healthily increases due to lack of sleep. With continued sleep deprivation, this risk goes up.
There is also a chance that risk of some types of cancer could also go up. Apparently people who sleep lesser than 6 hours had an increased risk of colorectal adenomas that can turn malignant over a period of time
A person also faces a higher risk of diabetes when he or she sleeps less, including the type 2 diabetes. Less sleep not only brings about changes in hormones leading to obesity but also decreases insulin sensitivity which increase the risk of diabetes.
The risk of heart risk also goes but due to lack of sleep resulting in hypertension, heart failure, atherosclerosis, heart attack according to some studies. It has been shown that less sleep can result in many heart related problems that could occur when you deprive yourself of sleep over a longer time period.
Another result of sleep deprivation is also an decrease in the sperm count. This means sleeping less can make you less fertile. This has been proven by a study conducted in Denmark that showed concentration on sperm in the semen comes down due to continued lack of sleep.
Lack of sleep also have a risk of mortality even if they change their lifestyle and adjust to problems like diabetes, hypertension and other conditions etc.