What are the Effects of Sleep Deprivation?
Given the Demands of Modern Life It's Hard to
Escape the Effects of Sleep Deprivation
It is too easy to neglect our sleep habits.
More and more pressure is put on people to perform and there just
never seems to be enough time in the day to meet our obligations.
The quick and easy solution (albeit short-sighted) is to just
steal a few hours from the sleep bank.
While we may be very disciplined about other aspects of our lives
that affect our health like being sure to get enough excercise
or eating healthy, it is often sleep that is neglected despite
it's major impact on both our physical and mental health. The
effects of sleep deprivation can also be relatively swift.
While sleep is necessary for the regeneration of cells throughout
the body the most important and most quickly affected are brain
cells. Other cells like those in muscle tissue can regenerate
to a certain extent while you are relaxed and not fully asleep
but brain cells need the deeper levels of sleep to recover.
You know this from your own experience and have seen how speech
becomes slurred, thinking processes slowed, concentration lost
and creativity blunted as a result of lack of sleep.
Since the brain requires sleep to regenerate itself the
effects of sleep deprivation are keenly felt and result
in immediate and long-term observable consequences.
Common Effects of Sleep Deprivation:
-
tiredness, (duh)
-
irritability, edginess
-
inability to tolerate stress
-
depression
-
problems with concentration and memory
-
slowed reaction times
-
behavioral, learning or social problems
-
frequent infections
-
blurred vision
-
slurred speech
-
vague discomfort
-
alterations in appetite
-
activity intolerance
-
headaches
-
hallucinations
-
weight gain
-
diabetes
-
death
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Your Brain
The temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex is used for
language so processing of verbal information and speech
function is one of the first things impacted. The ability to quickly
and accurately process language is affected and speech becomes
slurred.
Interestingly, it seems that another part of the brain, the parietal
lobes step in to help process this information but don't do as
good a job as the temporal lobe and language skills are still
reduced. However, since this region of the cerebral cortex is
related to short term memory and sleep deprived individuals are
now using this part of the brain there may be some improvement
to short term memory function during this time.
When it comes to thinking creatively sleep deprivation results
in blunting your ability to come up with clever ideas and solutions.
Sleep deprived individuals will tend toward solutions that have
already been done before, but it's worse than that... they will
use easy solutions that may not necessarily even be appropriate
given that the problem they are attempting to solve may be different
from when the solution originally worked.
Given that the prefrontal cortex is used for judgement, impulse
control, mental focus and making visual associations it is easy
to see how the quality of our mental processes and the resulting
decisions we make would be better left to a day when we are better
rested.
This mental laziness (or haziness) translates into the physical
realm as well. Another of the effects of sleep deprivation you
may have noticed is an intolerance for activity. Our mental function
is blunted and our physical motivation to "do things"
is also dramatically lowered. We may not be able to sleep but
we are also too tired to do anything else.
In this way it is really a false economy to cut corners on sleep
in order to get more work done as productivity, creativity and
quality is dramatically lowered. Better to sleep an extra
hour or two and be able to perform than to skrimp on sleep and
drag yourself through the day.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation: Hallucinations
Why do we hallucinate as a result of sleep deprivation?
Our brains work for us to try to create a semblance of the reality
around us. Everything we experience is really just an interpretation
of the inputs our brain receives from the world around us.
When you are suffering from the effects of sleep deprivation
your brain is struggling to keep providing a rational interpretation
of reality. However, the more sleep deprived you are
the more the neurons in your brain are struggling and the more
"unreal" the projection of reality provided by your
brain will become. This can even lead to temporary insanity if
you don't get the REM sleep cycle the brain and especially the
prefrontal cortex needs.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Immune System
While your brain, perceptions of reality and thought processes
are impacted by the effects of sleep deprivation your body and
immune system are not spared.
After only 24 hours without sleep the metabolism of the brain
is significantly reduced. (Up to 6% for the whole brain and up
to 11% for specific cortical and basal ganglionic areas.)2
Primary findings on the relation to sleep deprivation
on the body:
-
reduction in core body temperature
-
reduction in immune system capability with lowered white
cell count
-
reduced white cell activity
-
reduction in the release of growth hormone
The result of these effects are to lower your ability to fight
off infections and make you susceptible to illness. Given other
health factors including age (very young or old) and this can
contribute to conditions that result in severe illness or death.
Lack of sleep is also implicated in increased heart rate
variability (HRV). This can be of particualar concern
to patients whose lack of sleep is related to sleep
apnea. Due to reduced levels of oxygen the heart and brain
can suffer further damage and disruption of function.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation: Weight Gain
As if there weren't enough ways to cause us to gain too much
weight. Yes, one of the effects of sleep deprivation is weight
gain!
While it is possible to lose weight it is common to gain weight
as a lack of sleep primarily due to the influence that sleep has
on hormone production.
For example two hormones that come into play are leptin and ghrelin.
Ghrelin causes you to feel hungrier and leptin influences how
satisfied you are. Unfortunately, without proper sleep leptin
levels decrease and ghrelin levels increase so you wind up eating
more and feeling less satisfied.
Another factor causing weight gain is that with the less sleep
we get the less able we are able to deal with stress. As stress
levels rise so do the stress hormones like cortisol. Cortisol
can cause you to crave carbohydrates which creates the perfect
recipe for weight gain.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation: Diabetes
Chronic sleep deprivation, as well as excessive sleep,
may also lead to diabetes according to a study done at
the Boston University School of Medicine. Conclusions were that
"A sleep duration of 6 hours or less or 9 hours or
more is associated with increased prevalence of DM (diabetes mellitus)
and IGT (impaired glucose tolerance). Because this effect
was present in subjects without insomnia, voluntary sleep restriction
may contribute to the large public health burden of DM."3
Related Articles:
Insomnia Treatments
Insomnia Medications
Insomnia in Children
Teen Sleep Deprivation
Facts About Insomnia
Symptoms of Insomnia
Effects of Sleep
Deprivation
References:
1. The
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Brain and Behavior
2. Normal
Sleep, Sleep Physiology, and Sleep Deprivation
3. Association
of Sleep Time with DM and IMT
Return from Effects of Sleep Deprivation
to Sleep Disorders
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