What Happens to Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep?
Everyone’s experienced the occasional sleepless nights, or perhaps many sleepless nights. And everyone knows how unpleasant it is to spend the day feeling groggy and tired.
The fact is, though, that poor sleep has numerous negative consequences beyond just feeling fuzzy and out of it.
Numerous studies have revealed that sleep deprivation is not just unpleasant, it’s downright dangerous to one’s health.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1550 fatalities a year.
A Johns Hopkins study found that people who are sleep deprived are more prone to obesity. In fact, when compared with people who got seven to nine hours of rest each night, people who regularly slept less than four hours nightly were 73% more likely to suffer from obesity, the study found.
And a study by the University of Chicago Medical Center had people cut back to four hours of sleep a night - and found that people’s basic bodily functions, including regulation of blood sugar levels, were severely altered. When people were tested during the height of their sleep debt, their ability to secrete insulin and respond to insulin had decreased so much that they were similar to that of a diabetic.
Chronic sleep deprivation causes premature aging and impaired cognitive function, as well.
Everyone’s busy these days, and it’s tempting to try to cram more activities into daily living then there are hours in the day - and then cut back on sleep. But it’s important to realize that if you get a good night of sleep you will actually function better the next day and get more done, as well as be physically healthier.
That’s why you owe to to yourself to make sure that you get a good night’s rest each night.