How poor sleep or lack of sleep affect your health, ability to learn, brain, anxiety, your weight, detail article explores in depth.
If you go out regularly for the night out or even infrequently late night parties you might felt some difference next day morning in your mood or your memory.
Well, you are not alone and it didn’t just happen by chance because medical science has confirmed that lack of sleep or poor sleep or sleep deprivation seriously affects us.
Statistically one in three suffers from poor sleep because of work-related stress and other issues but often computers games, late night shows and the bad habit of taking work home are often blamed.
However, the real cost of sleep deprivation is much higher than what is known to us. For example lack of sleep can put people at risk of medical conditions, such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes in addition to the mood swing, lack of concentration, grey hairs, and increased aging process.
Memory: The lack of sleep or poor sleep can negatively impact both your short term and long term memory and you will find difficult to remember the things.
Extra Weight: Sleeping less can also lead to putting on extra weight. As per studies adults who sleep less than 7 hours a day gain extra weight and have a higher risk of becoming obese than those who get 7 or more hours of sleep.
It’s believed that sleep-deprivation leads to reduced levels of leptin (the chemical that makes you feel full) and increased levels of the hunger-stimulating hormone.
Concentration: Not only studies confirm but I have myself noticed on many occasions that when not having proper sleep, I find difficult to concentrate next morning.
Moody: Regular sleep deprivation can make you moody and irritated.
Eye Care: Sound sleep of 7-8 hours is also an essential tip for our healthy eyes. Just as our body needs rest after a day-long work so does our eyes. Late night waking habit is certainly not good for the eyes in the long run. You may often see the dark circle under the eyes of some people, well late night waking habit is one of the reasons for that.
When you have enough sleep, the water in your eye clear dust and dirt which get in your eye during the day, preventing any kind of infections in a natural way.
Tiredness: Since sleep is necessary for the body to recover, lack of sleep also leads to tiredness.
Risk of heart attack and stroke: As per the study by researchers in Taiwan that sleep disorder can significantly increase one’s risk of heart attack or stroke.
Poor sleep can also lead to the feeling of sleepiness or drowsy after lunch.
How much sleep is needed?
As per studies from the National Sleep Foundation, one should aim to sleep the number of hours as per your age. For example:
• Older adults, 65+ years: 7-8 hours
• Adults, 26-64 years: 7-9 hours
• Preschool children, 3-5 years: 10-13 hours
• Newborns, 0-3 months: 14-17 hours
Sleep deprivation can also lead to higher anxiety level and if you often stay awake late at night you will find difficulty in falling asleep. Just as our body needs food, air, water it also needs sleep to rest and recover.
In my personal experience sleep less than 6 hours per day is not healthy and ideally, it is good to have at least 7 hours of sleep.
The only exception is when you start meditating daily at least 2 – 4 hours a day and you started becoming aware of sensation inside your body even when you are lying on the bed to sleep, you will need sleep less number of hours you could easily feel fresh and energetic within 6 hours of daily sleep and sometimes even less, however, that is advanced stage of meditation where not many people have reached so until then I would suggest around 7 hours of sleep daily.