Last Updated on January 1, 2023
Sleep is an integral aspect of ensuring sound physical and mental health. Lack of sleep side effects can have a substantial negative impact on your health as it weakens your immune system and also leads to mental health problems like depression and anxiety. Shockingly, many people have insomnia, and this has a toll on their productivity.
Many are times when people deprive themselves of slumber terming it as less important. However, this is merely a misconception that will only do you more harm than good. So, do you know what makes sleep important? Here is an overview of the reasons why you should consider it an essential contributor to your health.
The Effects Of Sleep Deprivation
1. Lack of sleep stalls your mind
Sleep allows the mind to relax and repair. For that reason, every single night you deprive yourself of sufficient slumber goes on to add to your misery. Without it, your alertness, concentration, focus span, and ability to solve problems will all be affected. This means that you are prone to become a victim of accidents since your concentration levels are affected. Additionally, lack of sleep can affect the intelligence levels of young people and their general mental development. Youngsters aside, from studying the sleeping habits of successful people you can begin to see there is a strong link between a healthy brain and time spent sleeping.
2. Causes of heart disease
People who suffer from insomnia are at a higher risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, strokes, and heart attacks. A recent publication in the European Heart Journal shows that people who have problems sleeping, staying asleep, or waking up not feeling rested are at a greater risk of developing heart diseases over an 11-year period.
3. Insomnia makes you age quickly
Poor sleep triggers the hormone cortisol which is responsible for increasing your stress levels. The high levels of cortisol will then break down the collagen proteins that hold your skin cells together. As a result, the fine lines start appearing, your tone changes and wrinkles also appear.
4. Sleeplessness makes you fat
According to experts, you should sleep for at least six hours every night. Lack of the recommended sleep time increases hunger and appetite especially for foods rich in carbohydrates thus leading to excessive insulin secretion that promotes storage of fats in the body.
5. Poor sleep affects your memory
While sleeping, things you have seen, learned, or experienced are organized in the brain for future references. Therefore, if you do not get enough kip, you will have a hard time remembering important details in the future ultimately leading to degraded learning and memory difficulties.
6. Causes depression
Depression has for a long time been a menace to many people. However, lack of sleep and depression is proven to have a strong correlation. In fact, research shows that people who face problems sleeping were five times likely to develop symptoms of depression.
Sleep plays a crucial role in ensuring your body and mind relax and repair themselves after the toiling they undergo. However, this does not mean that you should sleep for long as oversleeping also has its effects. That said, now that you finally know the importance of sleep, do not let your body and mind suffer under your watch!
Additional Resources
Lindsay is a contributor and the senior editor of all content posted on this site. She is in this role due to her somewhat unrivaled expertise through previous retail experience in the mattress and bedding industry.