9+ long-term and short-term negative consequences of sleep deprivation

Although many people associate sleep with laziness, and lack of sleep can be aoften perceived as a positive thing, the reality is far from it. In fact, getting enough sleep is absolutely essential for the functioning of the human body. Conversely, insufficient sleep is associated with countless negative effects and health risks affecting your life more than you might have thought. In today's article, we will therefore look at these negative impacts in detail. I firmly believe that after reading it, you'll make it a point to get a good night's sleep.

The most common causes of sleep deprivation

First of all, though, let's take a look at why people actually have a problem with sleep deprivation. If sleep is so important, it makes sense that everyone should get enough of it. It costs nothing to get a good night's sleep, and you get a good night's rest in the process. But nowadays, most sleep-deprived people will tell you that they simply don't have time for it. The reason for this will usually be a very busy schedule, a lot of responsibilities at work and so on. This problem is not helped by the fact that most of society does not consider sleep to be important. If you tell your supervisor that you would like to leave workso you can go to bed early, you're not likely to make much headway.

Another cause of sleep deprivation is the ubiquitous blue light. This negatively affects the release of the hormone melatonin, which in turn affects the speed at which we fall asleep. But blue light can be counteracted with special glasses. In our comparison of the best glasses against blue light, we'll give you advice on how to choose the right ones. Excessive stress is also a common reason why people don't sleep enough. Again, this can be related to work or study commitments, for example, but the causes can be manifold. At this point, I think it is also important to mention that people also sleep little because they do not realise the importance of sleep. If you too are one of those people who do not consider sleep a priority, pay attention to the following paragraphs.

You often don't even realise you're not getting enough sleep

David Dinges, one of the most well-known sleep researchers, found in his study that people who suffer from sleep deprivation can't accurately gauge how tired they are. Sleep deprived people underestimated their level of fatigue and in turn significantly overestimated their cognitive abilities. Simply put, they had great difficulty estimating how bad their abilities were because of sleep deprivation. What's worse, this phenomenon was also seen in people who were only exposed to short-term sleep deprivation. Therefore, a person who does not get enough sleep for a few days in a row may overestimate their abilities, for exampleon the road, for example, and cause a traffic accident as a result of impaired attention (which he may not even be aware of). We will come to this issue in a moment.

Moreover, research has shown that the longer a person is exposed to sleep deprivation, the more this effect is felt. At the same time, it should be stressed that it is very difficult to "catch up" on missed sleep. According to Dignes' study, even three nights of unrestricted sleep was not enough for people to return to the level of people who regularly sleep 8 hours. Hence the need to get enough sleep not only on weekends, but also during the work week.

Impaired attention and concentration

I'm sure you've had to do some activity that requires concentration after a sleepless night. In this case, you can vividly imagine your eyes constantly closing.your eyes and your attention jumping from one thing to another without being able to concentrate on anything for long. This brings us back to the subject of sleep-deprived drivers. According to scientific evidence, severe sleep deprivation increases the risk of a road accident by up to 123%. Slightly more surprising is the statistic showing that drivers who sleep an average of 6 hours a day have a whole33% more likely to cause an accident than drivers who sleep 7 to 8 hours a day. However, as mentioned above, many people don't even realise that they are sleep deprived and 6 hours of sleep a day may seem like quite enough.

Reduced productivity and performance

Getting enough sleep is crucial to achieving peak sporting performance. But the same goes for efficiency at work or study. Sleep-deprived people make more mistakes and have lower performance than people who get enough sleep. So if you have a lot of work to do, spending time on it until late at night may not be worth it, paradoxically. If instead you went to bed earlier and got better sleep, your productivity would be much higher the next day. With that comes not only the ability to get more work done, but also, and most importantly, a higher quality of work done.

Irritability and mood swings

Try again how you felt the last time you didn't sleep all night. You were probably very tired all day, but in addition to that, you were most likely not in the best of moods. Lack of sleep often results in increased irritability and greater reactivity to emotionally stressful situations. So after a sleepless night, it's easy to get upset about something you would otherwise just wave your hand at. Interestingly, however, a sleep-deprived brain does not tend to retain a negative state of mind for a long time. Instead, it regularly alternates between good and bad moods. worse for our surroundings, because a sleep-deprived person can essentially change their mood repeatedly from one second to the next.

Weight gain

If you follow a strict diet and train to the fullest, you should also make sure you get a good night's sleep. Lack of sleep can cause all your work to go to waste. Sleep deprivation is closely related to the production of the hormone ghrelin. This is responsible for hunger and appetite. Its production increases after just one bad night's sleep. Hand in hand with excessive production of ghrelin is also insufficient production of the hormone leptin. The latter, in turn, is supposed to send a signal to the body that enough food has been eaten, to suppress the appetite for more food. Inadequate sleep is therefore a perfect recipe for an uncontrollable appetite, which, together with general fatigue and lack of exercise, leads to significant weight gain.

Other negative health effects

The list of the adverse effects of sleep deprivation on human health has made for several separate books. So for the moment, we'll just take a quick look at some of them.

Alzheimer's disease and dementia

Alzheimer's disease and dementia are among the most dreaded diseases among the elderly. Inadequate sleep can play a significant role in the development of these diseases. Some studies even suggest that good quality and sufficient sleep can delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by up to 10 years. Although the scientific evidence is not yet clear, there is a strong argument in favour of sufficient sleep.

Cardiovascular system and diabetes

Scientific studies prove that people suffering from sleep deprivation have a statistically much higher chance of developing cardiovascular disease. The same goes for elevated blood pressure and diabetes. It is also important to note that most studies dealing with theseon this problem are conducted on young people with healthy cardiovascular systems. Therefore, the impact on older people who may already suffer from a disease is likely to be much higher.

Reproductive system

A very important impact of sleep deprivation, but one that is often overlooked, is the decline in testosterone levels. However, testosterone levels are extremely important for men and especially for athletes. A drop in testosterone levels is not only linked to poorer reproductive performance and a decrease in libido, but also significantly affects athletic performance. If the arguments so far have not convinced you that getting enough sleep is really important, it is worth not taking it lightly just for the sake of testosterone levels.

Immune system

What do you do when you have the flu? You probably spend most of the day lying in bed and get quite a bit of sleep during the day. In fact, that's the best you can do at any given time. In fact, there is a very strong relationship between sleep and the immune system. Sleep deprivation therefore also translates into a reduced immune system response, which in simple terms means more frequent illness. Sleep also has an anti-inflammatory effect , so it not only helps preventbut can also have a positive effect on, for example, skin quality.

A few words in conclusion

Sleep deprivation brings with it a plethora of negative health effects. In this article, we have only looked at some of them, and yet it is clear at first glance that it is definitely not worth underestimating the benefits of quality sleep. In fact, sleep is absolutely crucial to our overall health and a lack of it can result in serious health problems. If you play sports and strive for peak performance, you should be even more concerned about quality sleep.

If you don't want to continue to take sleep lightly, a change in your lifestyle is definitely in order. Supplementation can also be the top of the pyramid, which you can check out in our comparison of the best sleep supplements.

If you have any questions on the topic of sleep, feel free to contact us in the comments below.