How Sleep can Impact Your Health

Do you feel grumpy when you sleep late or not sleep at all?

Are you that kind who thinks that not sleeping at night or sleeping late can be reimbursed by sleeping during afternoons or by taking midday power naps?

Often an 8 hour sleep is considered a good quality sleep but differs a little for everyone. Poor sleep could be a result of various gadgets, television, taking work home or working late. Getting a good quality sleep at the right time can benefit physical and emotional health. 

Benefits of sleeping on right time:

While sleeping well is no epitome of good health, it does help to maintain different functions. One of the most vital functions is to provide cells and tissues with the opportunity to recover from the wear and tear of daily life. Major functions in the body perform restoring functions such as tissue repair, muscle growth, and protein synthesis occurs almost exclusively during sleep.

• Boosts immunity

If you feel you catch every cold and flu every now and then, your bedtime could be to blame. Prolonged lack of sleep can disrupt your immune system, so you’re less able to cope with infections.

• Can help you manage weight

Sleeping less may be a cause for you to put on weight! Studies have shown that people who sleep less than 7 hours a day have more chances of gaining more weight and have a higher risk of having obesity than those who get 7 hours of sleep. Mostly sleep-deprived people have reduced levels of hormone leptin (the chemical that makes you feel satiety) and increased levels of ghrelin (the hunger-stimulating hormone) due to which you may overweight causing weight gain.

• Mental well being

Sleep deprivation can make you feel moody, quick tempered and emotional. Chronic deprivation could lead to long term mood disorders like depression and anxiety.

A single sleepless night can make you irritable and moody the following day, it’s not surprising that chronic sleep debt may lead to serious health issues.

• Wards off the risk of cardiovascular diseases

Research has suggested that people who usually sleep less than 5 hours a night have an increased risk of developing diabetes. Missing out on your daily dose of sleep could lead to change in the way the body processes glucose and uses energy. Insufficient sleep could be associated with increased heart rate, an increase in blood which may force the heart to put in extra effort.

How can not sleeping or sleeping late be harmful? 

The cost of not sleeping well could be more than feeling irritated and lack of focus. Regular poor sleep can trigger several diseases like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and may shorten your life expectancy.

Insufficient sleep for a day or two won’t harm your health but may make you feel lethargic, short tempered and irritable. Long term effects of sleepless nights could be brain fog, leading to concentrate and make decisions. 

Lack of sleep can affect your balance, movements and coordination, making you more to physical accidents and falls.

A lack of sleep can hamper memory as when you sleep, the brain forms connections and helps you process and store new information. Concentration, creativity and problem-solving skills are affected and little sleep even weakens the body’s defense mechanism.

Over to you

Those ‘surviving-on-2-hours-of-sleep’ might work well for social media stories but is definitely a bad idea. Give yourself enough time to sleep and understand that those seven to eight hours of sleep can have profound consequences on your whole body and can affect its mechanism. 

Sleep right and tight!