The Physicals of Sleep Deprivation Effects

June 15, 2009

In these times of worry and stress, 24-hour lifestyles, and caffeine to fuel everyday functioning, more and more people are getting less and less sleep. Serious sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep apnea are on the rise, and sleeping pill companies are continually increasing their sales. Most people know the sleep deprivation effects and how uncomfortable it is to be sleep deprived, but what they don’t know is how deadly it can be.

Scientists and researchers have recently conducted studies to find out the physical effects of sleep deprivation. The results are alarming. Research is beginning to reveal a host of major illnesses that can be aggravated, and possibly even caused, by sleep deprivation. Such illnesses include cancer, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.

This article cannot even begin to reveal every single health problem related to sleep deprivation effects, but an overview of some of the more serious problems is listed below:

Brain Sleep Deprivation. Sleep regenerates the entire body, but the brain especially needs sleep to function properly. When a person is awake for extended periods of time, neurons in the brain start to malfunction and negatively affect the person’s behavior. These neurons cannot be regenerated without going through certain stages of sleep. Not only could this potentially have some damage on the brain, but it causes visible problems in a person’s behavior.

Sleep Apnea Weight Gain. Sleep deprivation disrupts hormones in the body. Some of the hormones it affects are the ones that regulate appetite. A study of 10,000 people shows that people who sleep fewer than seven hours a night are much more likely to be obese.

Cancer Problems. People who don’t sleep enough have higher levels of substances in their blood caused by inflammation in their bodies. This inflammation causes many other diseases as well as cancer, such as stroke and diabetes. Also, people who don’t sleep enough have reduced levels of melatonin, the hormone that tells the body to sleep, and not enough melatonin has been linked to breast cancer. Many other hormones and proteins related to cancers are disrupted by a lack of sleep.

Heart Problems. The inflammation that increases cancer has also been linked to heart disease. Another problem with sleep deprivation is that studies have shown a lack of sleep causes a stressful state of high-alert in the body. When a person is significantly stressed, their body over-produces stress hormones, which drives up the person’s blood pressure. These stress hormones are a huge risk factor in heart attacks.

Diabetes Problems. People who are sleep deprived have problems regulating their blood sugar. Such problems with blood sugar correlates to diabetes, so a significant lack of sleep can cause or increase the risk of diabetes.

Sudden Death Sleep. At Harvard Medical School, Sanjay R. Patel led a study that involved over 82,000 nurses to see what correlations sleep deprivation had with physical and mental problems. Surprisingly, he found an increased rate of death in persons that slept less than six hours each night.

Most people are very familiar with the rules of good health – eating right, exercising, etc. – but scientists are just starting to realize that one of the most important aspects of good health is good sleep and can eliminate or reduce the sleep deprivation effects.

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Learning becomes less efficient when sleep deprived, different parts of the brain are activate when verbal learning between (temporal region) rested patients and (parietal lobes) non rested patients. Although brain activity is [...]