The prevailing mindset in the modern world is that sleeping long hours in the night is a waste of time. Sleep is treated like just another chore that ought to be finished quickly so you can move on to doing more important things in the day. To think this way is a terrible mistake. The difference between sleeping well and sleeping poorly is, towards the extremes, the difference between life and death.
Poor sleep affects your health severely. It causes a whole range of health problems, from something as small as weight gain to critical heart ailments. Let’s take a look at the health effects of poor sleep in detail:
It reduces your sex drive.
If you and your partner have been struggling to get any action between the sheets, there’s a possibility that it has to do with poor sleep. People who don’t get enough sleep in the nights are found to experience a decreased sex drive and a serious dip in sexual interest. Poor sleep enhances stress levels by elevating the stress hormone cortisol, and as you may already know quite well, stress can significantly affect your drive to make love.
It quickens the aging of your skin.
The effects of poor sleep on the skin and the area around the eyes are quite evident. But it turns out that sleeping poorly for long periods of time can have a more permanent effect in the form of lackluster skin, fine lines, and dark circles under the eyes. The elevation of the hormone cortisol is also responsible for the quick aging of the skin, as the protein collagen, which keeps the skin smooth, is broken down. In addition, it’s when you’re asleep that the body tries to heal the wear and tear on the skin. Not sleeping enough takes away the body’s chance to do that effectively.
It can make you gain weight.
Research has linked poor sleep with higher levels of the hormone ghrelin — the one responsible for triggering hunger. So if you’ve been sleeping lesser than six hours every night, you’ve been openly inviting hunger 24×7. What’s more, this hunger is likely to increase one’s hankering for high-carbohydrate, high-calorie foods — a perfect recipe for weight gain and, worse, obesity. A 2004 study revealed that people who sleep less than six hours a day are 30 percent more likely to become obese than someone who slept anywhere between seven to nine hours.
It affects your cognitive processes.
Several research studies have revealed that poor sleep can create the conditions for a number of cognitive problems to occur. Common effects are lower alertness and concentration, difficulty focusing, forgetfulness, and inefficient learning. Also, when people sleep in the nights, memories are consolidated in the mind. Depriving your body of sleep means taking away the body’s full ability to consolidate these memories, which makes it difficult for you to remember what you learned and experienced during the day.
There are many more problems that can occur in your body because of a lack of sleep. If you wish to be healthy and live a long life, you should make sleep a priority and get your beauty sleep of seven to eight hours every night as much as possible.