Letting ourselves get enough sleep is extremely important for our productivity levels, but also for our short term and long term health. If you know you are not sleeping very well and are worried about suffering from sleep deprivation, you may want to start looking for signs to see if you are. Sleep deprivation is very serious if not cured, but if you talk to you doctor, they will be able to cure it for you extremely easy, with no risks involved.
The signs and symptoms of sleep deprivation are fairly easy to observe, that is if you know what you are looking for. One of the easiest symptoms, plus obvious, is drowsiness and fatigue during the day. As expected, if you do not get enough sleep at night, then you will not be recharged enough to function the following day.
Another symptom affects your productivity; you will have a reduction in your mental performance and a loss of memory. A lack of sleep causes your brain to suffer, and you lose the ability to process mental tasks as well as you used to. And the more sleep you lose, the worse it hinders your ability and it may eventually become dangerous to function normally; you may put yourself and others at risk. For example, over one hundred thousand car accidents a year are caused by people driving with sleep deprivation.
Another symptom that will affect your relationships is mood change. When you are suffering from sleep deprivation, the chemicals in your brain are unbalanced which can cause mood changes, normally increasing irritability, emotionality, sadness, and low patience, which may cause anxiety or anger.
If you are suffering from sleep deprivation for a long period of time, it may begin to cause depression, for the same reasons listed above. If you feel this is happening to you, you will want to cure your sleep deprivation right away because this will start a vicious cycle. Depression often causes more problems sleeping, and you will never break away from it, or it will be much, much harder.
Sleep deprivation can also have a negative effect on your immune system, which will cause you to get sick, and continue to have a lack of sleep. Our immune system needs to recharge so it is healthy and able to fight off illnesses. If you let your immune system fail you will be suffering from more illnesses and a longer recovery time for each one. So if you are noticing you are becoming ill quite more often or that it takes you a while to recover, then you may need to allow yourself to get more sleep or see a doctor.
Sleep deprivation is also known to reduce glucose metabolism. If you cannot properly process glucose your body will suffer even more in functions such as the immune system, brain functioning, and energy levels. It can even go as far as to cause diabetes.
With twenty-five to thirty percent of Americans suffering from sleep deprivation, we all may want to keep close tracks on ourselves to make sure we are obtaining the right amount of sleep each night. Each person can run off of different amounts of sleep, and you should know around how many hours you need to feel good. Try to sleep on a regular schedule and do whatever you can to get to bed by the time you need to at night, it is very important for your health and happiness.
Jorge Reis is the author of
Why does sleep deprivation happen and
How to avoid sleep deprivation.
