6 Astonishing Impacts Of Inadequate Sleep

Many studies have concluded that we must strictly follow the four pillars of good health to add more years to our life. These four pillars are healthy diet, regular exercise, positive mental attitude and adequate rest. In fact, the results are great only if you follow all of them and if you skip any one of them, then adhering to other three won’t be much effective.

But in the modern age, the lifestyle of people has become so busy that incorporating all these four has become a cumbersome job. People are finding short of those 24 hours for fulfilling their work and personal commitments. Out of the four, the most ignored one is taking adequate rest. People are used to working late till mid night or are accustomed to waking up very early in the morning to start their busy day earlier than before. In fact being too occupied and taking less sleep has become a way of life.

But have you ever thought what could be the possible effects of sleeping less than required? Have you tried to find out what wonders can adequate rest do for your well being? You must know that in this busy lifestyle, you need to give a peaceful rest to your body and mind to recover itself from the stress caused during the day. Your muscles, bones and tissues need time to rejuvenate itself while your mind needs to take a break from the stressful thoughts of work and personal life.

Imagine if you are not taking adequate sleep, then what can be the consequences in the short run and in the long run? Without any delay, just keep reading these 6 astonishing impacts of inadequate sleep and promise yourself an adequate dosage of 8 hours of sleep daily:

1. Obesity

One of the main determinants for rising cases of obesity among the age group of 20 to 40 is lack of adequate sleep. When you sleep less, you are more likely to feel hungry and this increases your appetite. You intake more calories and you are more dependent on fried and spicy snacks. This can possibly result in unwanted weight addition. As per studies, a hormone called ghrelin stimulates more hunger when we sleep less and decreases secretion of leptin hormones that signals satiety to our brain and suppresses the appetite. Moreover, lack of sleep not only stimulates hunger but also increases our cravings for high carbohydrate and high fat food stuffs.

2. Heart Problems

Many a times, due to work stress and tensions in life, we may suffer from serious sleep disorders that can have hazardous effects on the heart. We usually pay less attention to sleep disorders as it does not show any major impact on health in the short run. As per researches, people suffering from insomnia (a chronic sleep disorder) are prone to suffer from various heart ailments such as heart attack, heart failure, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, etc.

3. Depression & Anxiety

In the long run, a person who suffers from lack of sleep or insomnia is much more prone to suffer from depression and anxiety in comparison to other people. In fact, medical studies have revealed that one of the main symptoms of depression and anxiety is inadequate sleep. They have claimed that insomnia and depression are correlated. Loss of sleep can trigger signs of depression in a person, while depression can make it further difficult to fall asleep.

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4. Lack Of Creativity

We are at our creative best when we have a relaxed state of mind and body. We feel relaxed when we take adequate rest and thereby, we are able to find out best solutions to the most critical problems too. On the contrary, lack of sleep affects the smooth functioning of our brains and affects the way we interpret things. This impacts our decision making as we many not be able to judge the situations by giving it a second thought. It has been studied that sleep deprived people are prone to take poor decisions as their mental alertness is highly impacted by lack of sleep. It is advised for people at decision making levels to sleep the right amount to ensure best decision making at all spheres.

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5. Skin Ageing

Everyone knows the concept of beauty sleep. Adequate sleep can make your skin glow from deep within and the skin ageing process slows down. It has been witnessed that most people who suffer from lack of adequate sleep have puffy eyes and pale looking skin. In severe cases, there are people who have dark spots on their skin, prominent appearance of wrinkles and fine lines along with dark circles under their eyes. When we have a sound sleep for at least 7 hours, then our body releases human growth hormones that repairs our body and refreshes our skin too. Lack of sleep however, gives our body less time to do this patch up work leading to skin problems too in the long run.

6. Poor Memory

Another negative impact of lack of sleep is poor memory. You become less likely to remember things as your brain is not relaxed and it is gripped in tiredness. American and French researchers had determined that the thing that stores memory in the brain is called ‘sharp wave ripples’. These ripples transfer the stored information from the hippocampus to the neocortex section of the brain that stores long term memories. These ‘sharp wave ripples’ are mostly formed when a person has a sound sleep of at least 7 hours. So sleep tight for a sharp memory!

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