Prioritizing rest — Six ways sleep deprivation can harm your health

By Anastasiia Soloveva

Getting home after a tough day and going straight to bed must be one of the best feelings in the world. Your eyes are slowly getting heavy, and you’re gradually drifting into a haze of sleep. However, sleeping is not only comfortable and cosy, but it’s also vital for your mental and physical health. This process helps us gain energy for the day and allows our bodies to rest in the hectic, fast-paced environment we live in. That’s why a human body cannot stay awake for too long — the consequences would be too damaging. These are six ways sleep deprivation can harm your health:

Loss of focus

Many students choose to complete their assignments and prepare for the exam instead of getting a proper night’s sleep. However, they’re only making it worse for themselves. The lack of sleep can lead to an inability to focus or function properly. People who are sleep-deficient are usually less productive at school. They need more time to finish tasks and make many mistakes. Sleep loss also impairs memory, learning, and decision-making while increasing the risk for chronic fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Research indicates that a good night’s sleep enhances learning and problem-solving abilities. Sleep also helps you pay attention, make decisions, and be creative. So getting enough sleep promises you a good and productive day ahead

Immune system

Overall health is also affected by the quality of your sleep. People who get less sleep tend to fall ill more quickly and more often. Lack of sleep lowers the production of infection-fighting cells, making the body more vulnerable to viruses and reducing the effectiveness of vaccines. Your whole immune system strongly depends on how long and well you’ve slept the previous night. So if you want to stay healthy and be active, make sure your sleep schedule is taken care of.  

Mental illnesses

Physical consequences of sleep deprivation are obvious for many people. When you’re tired, you feel like your head hurts or your legs are sore. But the lack of sleep can cause mental illnesses as well as physical illnesses. People who reported a history of insomnia were four times as likely to develop major depression within the next three years. Teenagers are affected the most, since they’re the ones who usually do not take getting enough sleep seriously enough.

It becomes harder for you to manage and process your emotions, and anxiety hits you harder. So, by getting a good and proper sleep, you allow yourself to live your life to the fullest.

Increased nervousness

Do you suffer from mood swings and high irritability? That’s another sign that you’re not getting as much sleep as your body needs. It gets harder to control your emotions, and the people you love and care about become more and more annoying in your eyes. It can even make your social life fall apart. Chronic lack of sleep increases inflammation and boosts levels of stress hormones, increasing heart attack and stroke risk. Sebastien, a second-year Illustration student at Sheridan College, notes that the lack of sleep affects his productivity a lot. “Sometimes you need to put a lot of effort and time into your work, but you just can’t concentrate, and the only thing you wish for is to lie in bed and sleep.”

In addition, sleeping less than seven hours a night raises the risk of high blood pressure. That’s why sleeping is very important. Your body can finally rest, while you can forget about your daily worries and just enjoy the warmth of your bed.

Higher risk for obesity/diabetes

Many people love sweet treats, but we all know when to stop. The processed sugar is bad for many parts of our bodies, especially our teeth. However, for people who don’t get enough sleep, it’s harder to control themselves. Lack of sleep disrupts hormone regulation and increases cortisol. It also impairs sugar processing, leading to obesity and type 2 diabetes. Numerous studies have linked inadequate sleep with obesity. While you can treat obesity and lose weight, there is no cure for type 2 diabetes yet. So, taking care of your sleep is important, and you should do that from a very early age.

Dementia

Loss of focus and nervousness, which were already mentioned, are only short-term consequences. “When processes related to sleep are disrupted, the consequences are not always immediately dramatic. More often, they are subtle, cumulative, and most of the time are easy to misread,” Stuart Fogel, Associate Professor and Director of Sleep Neuroscience from Ottawa, told the Canadian Sleep Society. 

The most serious one is definitely dementia. Experts believe that sleep helps clear the brain of amyloid, the protein thought to damage nerve cells in Alzheimer’s. This is why people who choose to stay awake instead of getting proper sleep will face a really unfortunate outcome. The effects of sleep deprivation also depend on why it happens and how long it lasts. The longer a person has sleep deprivation, the greater — and more severe — the effects. Besides the increase in dementia risk, the lack of sleep can also age your brain by 3-5 years. And we want to stay young as long as possible, so take your pillow with the blanket and go to bed to get some sleep.