If you love late-night movies and online surfing, then this is one habit that you should immediately discard. If you have ever spent a night turning and tossing, you already know how you will feel the next day — cranky, tired, and out of sorts.

Different The Effects Of Sleep Deprivation

This is a very unhealthy habit. This is something that you would hear quite often from your parents. But do you know that missing out on the recommended seven to nine hours of daily sleep does more than make you feel grumpy and groggy?

Getting sleep and allowing the body rest have multiple benefits. The health and psychological benefits associated with sleep are:

• Sleep helps to boost one’s mental wellbeing.
• Sleep can also help slim you by improving your metabolic rate.
• Sleep helps to boost immunity.
• It prevents contracting diabetes.
• Sleep also increases sex drive.
• Sleep wards off heart disease.
• Sleep increases fertility.

The world medical fraternity has established that the long-term effects of sleep deprivation are real and severe. It exhausts you mentally and puts your physical health at risk. Also, science has linked sleep with a number of health problems.

Let us comprehensively look into the effects of sleep deprivation:

How Does Effect on Body?

When you sleep, your body heals and restores its chemical balance. During this time, the brain forges new thoughts and helps in memory retention. Without proper sleep, the brain and the body systems do not function normally. It also lowers the quality of life. The studies conducted in 2010 have shown that sleeping too little at night increases the risk of early death.

The immediately noticeable signs of sleep deprivation are provided below:

• daytime fatigue
• frequent yawning
• excessive sleepiness
• irritability

You can use stimulants like caffeine to drive off your sleep, but doing this over a longer period of time would do more harm than good. This is a fact that would make your problem of sleep deprivation even worse. Taking caffeine excessively will make it hard for you to fall asleep. You can also end up having the problem of insomnia.

Effect on Central Nervous System

The central nervous system helps in transmitting information and senses. To keep the central nervous system healthy and functioning, one must get proper sleep and rest. The problem of chronic insomnia can disrupt the body’s usual functioning and affect the central nervous system.

Sleep deprivation leaves the brain deprived of the necessary rest and leaves it exhausted. This, in turn, hampers the working of the nerve cell. Furthermore, sleep deprivation also negatively affects one’s emotional state and mental abilities. It is very probable that a person who has chronic insomnia will also suffer from drastic mood swings. It can thus compromise one’s decision-making creativity and processes.

Studies have shown that if one suffers from sleep deprivation for a longer time, one can also face the problem of hallucinations. Lack of proper sleep can also trigger mania in people who are suffering from bipolar mood disorders.

The psychological risks associated with sleep deprivation are:

• Impulsive behavior
• Suicidal thoughts
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Paranoia

Effect on the Immune System:

When you rest, the immune system produces infection-fighting and protective substances like cytokines and antibodies. These substances play a crucial role in fighting foreign invaders like viruses and bacteria.

Sleep deprivation prevents the immune system from building up this substance. If you do not get the recommended amount of sleep, your immune system will gradually fall weak. And if you are affected by any diseases, you would take a longer time to recover.

So without wasting any more time, change your unhealthy practice, and this year gift yourself the much-needed sleep you deserve.