Lack of sleep can leave anyone feeling tired and grumpy. However, sleep deprivation does more than that! Not only will it drain you mentally, but it will also put your physical health at risk. In fact, a scientific study has surprisingly proven that many types of problems are linked to poor slumber. Read on below to find out more.
It Will Inflate Your Appetite
Proper sleep will help you better manage your appetite. That’s because it helps your body replenish its energy. Poor sleeping habits will cause your body to look for other sources of energy. Your brain will release chemicals that will make you hungry, leaving you eating more, exercising less, and gaining weight. If left unchecked, the combination of lack of sleep and inflated appetite can lead to life-threatening health problems like obesity or diabetes.
It Will Botch Your Immune System
During sleep, your body’s immune system releases cytokines, organic compounds that help protect it by fending off infection and inflammation. Lack of sleep can dampen this process somewhat, which can leave your immune system (and your entire body by extension) vulnerable to sickness. This is also one of the reasons why doctors recommend ample amounts of bed rest for people who underwent cosmetic surgery. According to aplastic surgery clinic in Kansas City, not only do proper sleep and a healthy immune system help patients recover from the procedure faster, but they can also help them enjoy their new physique better.
It Will Weaken Your Cognitive Skills
While it’s already well-established that sleep deprivation can significantly impede your focus and memory, research has also proven that those who lack sleep face certain cognitive disadvantages people who get reasonable amounts of slumber time don’t. These cons include misinterpretation of events, impaired judgment, overworked neurons, and inability to receive or retain information. Proper sleep helps you maintain your cognitive skills, and each sleep stage will contribute to your ability to learn and process memory. Two of these stages at least (rapid eye movement and slow wave sleep) helps improve creative thinking, memory processing, procedural memory, and long-term memories.
It Will Shorten Your Lifespan
An average adult needs around 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night to stay healthy. People who sleep less are more likely to experience premature death. A data analysis made by researchers from the UK and Italy even corroborated this fact. Reading through 16 separate studies that spanned 25 years, covered more than 1.3 million individuals, and noted over 100,000 deaths, they observed that people who sleep for less than 6 hours are 12% more likely to die early. The researchers also pointed out that those who sleep less than the prescribed 7 to 8 hours also increase their chances of dying from other causes.
Sleep Well
Getting enough snooze time is one of the keys to a healthy lifestyle. So if you’re currently depriving yourself of sleep, it’s never too late to start practicing good sleep hygiene. By taking steps to ensure you have the right amount of slumber time, you’ll be able to get your sleep life back on track.