The Hiffington post has recently gathered evidence from a growing body of literature which offers insight into what happens to one’s body when missing out on the usually recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night.
Frightening results have been published in the Huffington’s piece indicating that sleep is not just good for your beauty. Although the term “beauty sleep” is proven correct scientifically, it is merely one of the various result (and possibly one of the least significant) in comparison to everything else one can develop due to sleep deprivation.
The piece cited studies which proved that people sleeping less than recommended hours, tend to eat bigger portions, are more likely to go for unhealthy food, and are more likely to gain weight on the long run.
Short term effects of sleep deprivation also include higher risks of catching colds, and proneness to car accidents due to drowsy-driving. Daily life functions are also affected by memory and concentration difficulties which could result from lack of sleep.
Neurological effects of sleep deprivation include losing brain tissue, as well as more reactive emotional centers causing susceptibility to highly emotional reactions. The disturbing thing is that such changes occur after the very first night!
Losing on your sleeping hours also cause further effects on the long run, including quadrupling risk of stroke, as well as higher risks of developing cancerous cells such as colorectal adenomas and breast cancer.
In addition, the possibility of acquiring diabetes increases with too little, as well as too much sleep hours. In other studies, chronic sleep deprivation was also associated with heart diseases (high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, heart attacks, or heart failures), as well as decreased fertility. Sleeping less hours than recommended can affect a person’s sperm count, causing less sperm concentration in their semen, and it is less by 29%.
Mortality risk also reportedly increases with inadequate sleep. The scary part is that even after providing needed medical attention to associated medical problems (like blood pressure irregularities, diabetes, etc.), risk of death still increases with less than 6-hour sleep per night.
So people, listen to your biological clock, answer the calls of your bed, and try to regulate your sleeping hours, because your body needs it even if you don’t feel like it, or think that you have no time for it. Spare your health, save your life- SLEEP!
Source: Huffpost Healthy Living
Photo Credit: The Huffington Post
