Everyone loves to say “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” to make themselves feel better about a poor night’s rest. But the truth is that the more sleep you lose, the sooner that’ll happen. There are many ways that good sleep – or lack thereof – can have a serious impact on your health. You may be surprised at how deep the rabbit hole goes!
A Lack of Sleep Will Expand Your Waistline
Believe it or not, recent studies have come out that show kan intrinsic link between people who don’t get enough sleep and people who are considered medically obese. Children who get insufficient sleep have an almost 90% chance of becoming obese, whereas their adult counterparts have a 55% chance of becoming obese if they are chronically sleep-deprived. Why? The two main reasons are hormone levels and, of course, the energy levels required to exercise. Poor sleep throws your hormone levels out of balance and saps you of your energy, which makes it that much harder to make healthy choices.
And that isn’t just with regard to exercise. Whether or not you get good sleep has a major impact on the food choices you make. Poor sleep throws your hunger and satiety hormones out of whack, making you feel hungrier and more desperate for the types of unhealthy foods that make you gain weight. The lack of sleep also increases your stress levels which makes “comfort food” almost irresistible.
Good sleep isn’t just important for people who are trying to get in shape. It’s also essential for people who are already in shape. A recent study performed on basketball players conclusively showed that their reaction times, accuracy, and speed all improved the day after a longer, more restorative rest. Another study on elderly women found that they walked slower and had less grip strength when they were sleep-deprived.
The Link Between Sleep Deprivation and Chronic Disease
There’s a very good reason why your body wants to lay in bed and rest when you’re sick. It’s because your immune system is intrinsically linked to your sleep patterns. People who lose sleep also lose functionality of their immune response. Some studies show that you’re almost three times more likely to get sick when exposed to a pathogen if you are sleep deprived! Getting enough sleep, on the other hand, has been linked to decreased inflammation. This is especially true for people who suffer inflammatory diseases of the bowel, like Crohn’s Disease.
Poor sleep is bad for your heart. And this isn’t according to just one study, or just a handful of studies. 15 Separate studies from around the world showed that getting less than 7 hours of sleep at night substantially increased a person’s risk for heart disease and/or stroke.
Poor sleep isn’t just bad for your appetite and your waistline. It’s devastating to your metabolism as a whole. Reduced insulin sensitivity – the precursor to type 2 diabetes – is elevated when you don’t get enough sleep. Another recent study showed that a group of healthy test subjects started showing pre-diabetic symptoms after being intentionally sleep-deprived. The good news is, though, that the test subjects who started showing symptoms of prediabetes in these sleep-deprivation studies reversed their condition after a solid week of good, sufficient sleep. So it’s never too late to change your sleep habits for better health!
Sleep and the Brain
The older you get, the harder it is to concentrate and remember things. Coincidentally – or as it turns out, not coincidentally – older people also have trouble getting enough sleep. These two phenomena are directly related to one another. The less sleep you get, the more deleterious it is for your brain health. And it isn’t just your ability to concentrate and remember where you put your car keys that suffer. Your emotional well-being will take a hit, too.
The majority of people believe that things like depression are genetically predetermined – but as it turns out, our health and wellness habits have a much more powerful influence on our emotional well-being. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, it’s going to make you more vulnerable to emotional instability and full-blown depression. It can also make it more difficult for you to recognize subtle social cues, thus putting stress on your relationships with others.
As you can see, poor sleep can have a negative impact on your body from head to toe, inside and out. And the simplest solution to this problem is: to get more sleep! Obviously, that’s easier said than done. You should have a conversation with your doctor if sleep problems happen more than a few times per month. And in the meantime, you can look around our site to find tons of health and wellness advice.
