What is the danger of lack of sleep: the dangerous consequences of a lack of sleep

Those who believe that sav­ing on sleep gains time for life are deeply mis­tak­en. Ade­quate sleep is the key to good health, and there­fore a high qual­i­ty of life. Peo­ple who do not get enough sleep on a reg­u­lar basis are more like­ly to be over­come by depres­sion, chron­ic dis­eases, prob­lems with excess weight and skin. But this is not all the neg­a­tive con­se­quences of poor sleep.

The effect of sleep on health

Mod­ern man has so much to do that he often breaks his sleep sched­ule. This can lead not only to feel­ing tired and feel­ing unwell, but also to more seri­ous health prob­lems. Night sleep is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for a per­son. If it is neglect­ed for a long time, then the body los­es its defens­es, and the risk of devel­op­ing many chron­ic dis­eases increas­es.

Inad­e­quate sleep can wors­en not only phys­i­cal but also men­tal health: depres­sion, ner­vous­ness, a feel­ing of irri­ta­tion and aggres­sion appear. The appear­ance and beau­ty suf­fer from a lack of sleep: eyes swell, dark cir­cles appear, the skin fades and becomes more prone to dry­ness and dis­ease.

The amount of sleep a per­son needs varies and depends on genet­ic, gen­der, age and phys­i­o­log­i­cal fac­tors. But on aver­age, it will take about 7–9 hours to get a good night’s sleep and rest. If, for a num­ber of rea­sons, the sleep pat­tern is reg­u­lar­ly dis­turbed, then efforts must be made to restore it as soon as pos­si­ble, oth­er­wise it can result in dan­ger­ous health con­se­quences.

Decreased memory and brain function

Sure­ly, many have noticed that after a sleep­less night it is much more dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate and make the brain work. Prop­er sleep plays an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of cog­ni­tive think­ing, pro­motes learn­ing and increas­es mem­o­ry capac­i­ty. Lack of sleep, on the con­trary, leads to a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in vig­i­lance, con­cen­tra­tion, slows down deci­sion mak­ing. Poor sleep neg­a­tive­ly affects both short-term and long-term mem­o­ry. The abil­i­ty to learn is also reduced, which is why prop­er sleep is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for school­child­ren and stu­dents.

Increases the risk of cardiovascular disease

Good rest and sleep are essen­tial for heart health. Research in 2000 showed that pro­longed lack of sleep can increase blood pres­sure and reduce the activ­i­ty of the sym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. Peo­ple who sleep less than six hours have a greater risk of devel­op­ing coro­nary heart dis­ease, ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis and stroke com­pared to those who sleep sev­en to eight hours a night.

Weakens the immune system

Lack of sleep can adverse­ly affect the immune sys­tem, which pro­tects the body from infec­tions and virus­es. When a per­son gets enough sleep, the immune sys­tem secretes sub­stances that pro­tect the body from infec­tions. If the sleep pat­tern is dis­turbed, the pro­duc­tion of cytokines decreas­es, which wors­ens the immune sys­tem, mak­ing the body vul­ner­a­ble to var­i­ous viral and bac­te­r­i­al dis­eases.

Causes depression

Poor sleep for a long time leads to changes in the pro­duc­tion of neu­ro­trans­mit­ters in brain tis­sues, which is one of the caus­es of depres­sion. Some­times depres­sion itself pre­vents a per­son from sleep­ing. Insom­nia is one of the first signs of depres­sion. Accord­ing to recent stud­ies, more than 90% of peo­ple who have depres­sion, anx­i­ety and ner­vous­ness suf­fer from poor sleep.

Bad for the body

A reg­u­lar sleep sched­ule helps main­tain a good appetite and diet. When a per­son sleeps lit­tle, his body pro­duces more of the hunger hor­mone ghre­lin and reduces the pro­duc­tion of lep­tin, which sup­press­es appetite. So, lack of sleep reduces appetite con­trol and ener­gy metab­o­lism, which con­tributes to weight gain. In addi­tion, there are many peo­ple who, with the help of food, try to over­come sleep or recu­per­ate after sleep­less nights, which is not reflect­ed in the best way on the fig­ure.

Worsening skin condition

Just one night of poor sleep can cause puffy eyes, dark cir­cles under the eyes, and yel­low­ish or gray skin tones. It is easy to imag­ine how much dam­age to the skin can be caused by a reg­u­lar vio­la­tion of sleep pat­terns. First of all, the skin los­es its elas­tic­i­ty and healthy tone. Chron­ic lack of sleep leads to exces­sive feel­ings of stress and anx­i­ety, due to which the body pro­duces more cor­ti­sol. This hor­mone destroys a pro­tein in the skin that is respon­si­ble for its elas­tic­i­ty and smooth­ness.

Skin that los­es elas­tic­i­ty is more prone to prob­lems such as dark cir­cles around the eyes, dry­ness, wrin­kles, dull­ness, etc. In addi­tion, insuf­fi­cient sleep reduces the skin’s abil­i­ty to recov­er from sun expo­sure. There­fore, the path to her beau­ty and health lies, first of all, through a good sleep.

Shortens life

Like breath­ing, sleep is one of the basic human needs. It is almost impos­si­ble to be with­out sleep for a long time. And those who don’t get enough sleep on a reg­u­lar basis have high­er rates of pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty than those who keep a reg­u­lar sleep sched­ule. Accord­ing to the results of stud­ies, rats that were not allowed to sleep died after 20–30 days. In 2007, stud­ies showed that lack of sleep is as harm­ful to health and life as its excess.

Leads to accidents

Seri­ous acci­dents on the roads and at work are often asso­ci­at­ed with uncom­fort­able sleep sched­ules and fatigue of the par­tic­i­pants in the inci­dents. Dri­ver drowsi­ness and fatigue can lead to car acci­dents and acci­dents. Lack of sleep impairs coor­di­na­tion, weak­ens mem­o­ry and the abil­i­ty to retain infor­ma­tion, slows down reac­tion and deci­sion mak­ing. All these fac­tors adverse­ly affect the abil­i­ty to dri­ve any vehi­cle or con­trol mech­a­nized pro­duc­tion, which increas­es the risk of acci­dents. For those who work 24 hours a day, it is nec­es­sary to peri­od­i­cal­ly arrange sleep breaks of at least 15–20 min­utes. This will restore strength and save you from inat­ten­tion.

Reduces libido

Due to poor sleep, inter­est in inti­ma­cy is lost. A per­son becomes tense and irri­tat­ed, which neg­a­tive­ly affects the sex­u­al life of both men and women. Peo­ple suf­fer­ing from sleep apnea (sud­den stop­page of breath­ing while sleep­ing) tend to have low­er testos­terone lev­els, which leads to a drop in libido.