Effects Of Sleep Loss in Your Health

Not a long time ago, people still believed that sleep loss has no negative effect on health. However, recent researches showed that more than just excessive day time sleepiness (EDS), sleep loss can cause a lot more troubles.
If you have less than 7 hours of sleep per night, a wide-range of problems can occur to the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune and especially the nervous system. Here are the most common effects of sleep loss on people from children to adult:

Obesity

This fact may confuse a lot of people. Usually, people think that you will gain weight once you can sleep well. In fact, sleep loss prevents the secret of a hormone called leptin, which suppresses appetite. When you sleep less, appetite increases. This is the reason for obesity in people who suffer sleep loss. Research also found that people who sleep 7.7 hours per night have lowest BMI (Body Mass Index).

Diabetes

Two large researches by two independent associations showed that: people with only 5 or less hours of sleep per night will have 2.5 times higher risk of having diabetes in comparison to people who have 7 to 8 hours sleep. Meanwhile, people who sleep 6 hours per night will have lower chance, 1.7. However, sleep more than 9 hours a day is not good as it can produce similar effects to people who only sleep 5 or 6 hours per night.

Cardiovascular related diseases

In a research deployed in 1986, there were a large number of healthy people who didn’t have any cardiovascular problem. They were tracked in a period of ten years. In 1996, those people were gathered again and check the problem with their heart. The report showed that people sleep less than 5 hours a day had 45% higher risk of having cardiovascular problems. Meanwhile, people who have adequate sleep (7 to 8 hours per day) have lower chance.

Panic attacks, anxiety

Excessive sleep loss can have adversely effects on people’s mental health. Panic, anxiety, depression… As sleep loss make it harder to concentrate, people will find themselves doing not well at everything. Bad work result, school reports can cause a lot of depression. Lack of sleep also causes the brain incapability to provide proper react to situations.
Sleep loss can cause a lot of problems to people life. People have a lot of reasons to sleep less than the adequate amount. They could be legitimate ones like night shift, insomnia… or something like night time parties… Whatever the reason, you need to think about the effects that sleep loss may cause to your life. If the reason is insomnia, find a doctor. Change your job, if possible, if it requires a lot of night shift. And if you party a lot, consider changing your lifestyle.