Sleep is just as important as diet and exercise when it comes to living a healthy life.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic. Lack of sleep has been linked to a myriad of health problems.
TENDENCY TO GET OVERWEIGHT:
Sleeping for less than recommended hours makes you more likely to gain weight and eventually become obese. It is a common observation that when one is awake late at night, he/she tend to eat more and that too processed or ready to eat food-stuff that causes more harm than good.
DIABETES:
People who don’t get enough sleep increase their risk of developing adult-onset diabetes at a very early age. According to research, 7 to 8 hours of undisturbed sleep is the optimal range to avoid the hormonal insulin issues that could lead to diabetes.
HEART AILMENTS AND IMMUNODEFICIENCY
Your chances of developing coronary heart disease or having a stroke are greatly increased with less sleep. Also, there is a reciprocal relationship between sleep and your immune system. Losing sleep can impair your body’s ability to fight off illness.
MORTALITY AND CANCER RISK
According to American Academy of Sleep Medicine, shortened sleep is associated with higher rates of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer. It has been observed that both men and women who slept seven or more hours per night had the best mortality rates in the group.
HAIR LOSS AND APPEARANCE:
Those with too little sleep tend to have more fine lines, wrinkles, uneven skin color, dark circles under the eyes and marked looseness of the skin.
Proper sleep wards off unnecessary stress and fatigue. When one doesn’t get necessary amount of sleep, undue irritation and tension persists throughout the following day. Tension due to stress is believed to take a heavy toll on your hair.
ALZHEIMER’S AND DEMENTIA
The researchers discovered that a waste-draining system they call the “glymphatic system” is ten times more active during sleep than while awake. This nocturnal cleaning system removes proteins called amyloid-beta, which accumulate into the plaques that contribute to Alzheimer’s and dementia.
AFFECTS PERFORMANCE AT WORKPLACE
You are more attentive when you doze off at a right time, as there is something called circadian rhythm that trains the body and mind for day to day activities. Loss of sleep inadvertently affects workplace performance. Also, you feel drowsy the whole day, that affects other activities too that you want to perform.
FORGETFULNESS:
Researchers suggest that sleep is critical to the process of consolidating the things we learn in the brain. Not only can less/missed sleep make you more forgetful, sleep has an impact on brain functions including memory, decision-making, reasoning, and problem-solving along with reaction time and alertness. All these are affected when one is deprived of proper sleep.
ROAD ACCIDENTS:
According to the National Sleep Foundation, you are three times more likely to be involved in a road accident if you get six or fewer hours of sleep each night. The most vulnerable people are night-shift workers, commercial drivers, business travelers, and anyone working for long or odd hours.
Hope this information helps!!