According to sleep expert, Rebecca Robins—instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School—sleeping one less hour than recommended can negatively impact your overall wellbeing.
One less hour is enough to damage your brain
The associate scientist at the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital explains that the brain releases harmful toxins when it is sleep deprived. She says:
One hour can indeed be enough to throw our internal clock out of sync.
When we change our sleep schedules by an hour or longer from one day to the next, we are sending signals to the brain that we are attempting to transition to a new time zone, making the next night's sleep challenging.
When the brain is under-rested and being used to its maximal capacity, it begins to release toxins throughout the day that weaken your immune system. Robins explains:
We discovered that over the course of the day, the brain produces toxins, the accumulation of which is associated with neurocognitive decline such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
There is one very interesting study that has looked at rhinovirus, a sister pathogen of SARS-Cov-2. The researchers found that those who are sleep-deprived had more than a twofold greater risk of colds and flu.
Tricks to fall asleep
If falling asleep seems like a hassle to you, the health expert recommends setting a specific time that is to remain the same to program one's body into a sleep ritual.
Another trick she swears by is to avoid reaching for your phone to scroll endlessly right before falling asleep. Instead, practising meditation to calm the mind would be a much better alternative to consider.