Health Risks Due to Lack of Sleep

Adults takes generally around seven to eight hours of sleep of sleep each day, but individual differences makes some people require more or less sleep than others. Though the real function of sleep is yet uncertain, it serves some restorative functions in all individuals and a basic necessity for living healthy and productively.

For people who works in a graveyard shift, the health risks doubles, working at night has its own negative effects (which I also in my previous blog post) but aside from that, not having adequate sleep is also a problem.

Here's a compilation of of the most evident effects of sleep deprivation or lack of sleep.

Lack of sleep affects brain functions that results to less efficient memory performance. Sleep deprived people are often tired and becomes forgetful, feels less motivated and becomes more anxious; and this affects everything from performance, to physiology, to charisma. Immunity also drops and so you develop illnesses or aches.

In addition, as a result of continuous muscular activity without proper rest time, effects such as cramping are much more frequent in sleep-deprived individuals. . Beyond impaired motor skills, people who get too little sleep may have higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression, and may take unnecessary risks.

Sleep deprivation disrupts hormones responsible for regulating glucose, metabolism and appetite.
The body's inability to metabolize glucose can also lead to diabetes and obesity.

Also a study according to According to a 2000 study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers in Australia and New Zealand, sleep deprivation can have some of the same hazardous effects as being drunk. People who drove after being awake for 17–19 hours performed worse than those with a blood alcohol level of .05 percent, which is the legal limit for drunk driving in most western European countries.

One of the possible side effects of a continued lack of sleep is death. Usually this is the result of the fact that the immune system is weakened without sleep. One study stated that people who sleep less than four hours per night are three times more likely to die within the next six years.