Effects of Sleep Deprivation

The effects of sleep deprivation cause fundamental issues that create challenges for you in areas ranging from weight gain, impaired brain function, inability to handle stress, impaired immune system, and generally decreases your overall state of well-being.

Effects of Sleep Deprivation - Weight Gain

Weight gain is not one of the widely known effects of sleep deprivation that most people think about. I have experienced this as a cycle. When my weight increases, my quality of sleep decreases and vice versa.

Proper diet and exercise aid in improving the overall quality of sleep...and the opposite is also the case. Improve your quality of sleep, and you have an improved ability to eat less and exercise.

It turns out that production of hormones that affect appetite are among the effects of sleep deprivation:

"While leptin is a hormone that affects our feelings of fullness and satisfaction after a meal, ghrelin is the hormone that stimulates our appetites.

When you suffer from sleep deprivation, your body’s levels of leptin fall while ghrelin levels increase. This means that you end up feeling hungrier without really feeling satisfied by what you eat, causing you to eat more and, consequently, gain weight."

(Source)

These hormones are throughly covered in the book that I am using for my diet and exercise plan called "You - on a diet".

You can start on either end of this cycle to gain the benefits of good sleep...or both. If you get a good night's sleep on a regular basis it will make eating less becomes easier...

...if you eat less and exercise you will automatically sleep better.

Effects of Sleep Deprivation - Overall Well-being

The effects of sleep deprivation are responsible for a fundamental shift in our bodies overall state of well-being. Our bodies are much less complicated than the our mind, heart, and spirit...

...your body is fundamentally concerned with eating, SLEEPING, eliminating, and pro-creating...there are levels of complexity under each of these categories of course, but if you focus on the fundamentals, the details tend to take care of themselves.

This is a short list of the effect of sleep deprivation on your overall state of health:

    * depression
    * heart disease
    * hypertension
    * irritability
    * slower reaction times
    * slurred speech
    * tremors

(list quoted from here)

Effects of Sleep Deprivation - Impaired Brain Function

We have all experienced the "mental fog" of an "all-niter"...we stayed up all night for something very important...and life is like that sometimes, emergencies happen. When you fall into a pattern of low-quality sleep...you become accustomed to a lower level of overall mental alerts that will start to feel like your normal state.

Your ability to make decisions is one the most prominent effect of sleep deprivation...I have felt this in my life. When I am tired and need sleep, my
wife can win any argument, because I will agree to anything as long as she let's me sleep.

At work, you brain's ability to produce creative solutions to problems is another effect of sleep deprivation. Your brain is working overtime just to keep you awake. How can you expect to solve that elusive problem at work if you are always thinking about the next caffeine and sugar boost?

I have also experienced a inability to focus or concentrate when I don't get enough sleep...think about the last time you had to sit through a staff meeting at work...were you awake and aware?...completely focused on the topic at hand and participating fully in the discussion?

Or were you "zoned out" or maybe even working desperately to fight the urge to nod off...I have done the "nod off" at many staff meetings...that is not the best way to stay employed or become employee of the month! ;-)

Effects of Sleep Deprivation - Handle Stress

Another effect of sleep deprivation is an impaired ability to deal with stress...

This becomes really obvious when we try to push ourselves to drive longer than we should without sleeping...this can be a huge safety issue as well.

When you are tired, your mode can range from a little grumpy or cranky all the way up to violent...your bodies ability to deal with stressful situations is greatly impaired when deprived of quality sleep...

...your body is expending most of it's energy just keeping your body moving and awake...so that limits your ability to decide whether or not you really disagree with someone or...you just "can't deal with this right now".

Effects of Sleep Deprivation - Immune System

I sleep pretty well these days...I have generally sleep well for the last 4 years or so...I have not taken a sick day off of work is those four years.

An impaired immune system is another effect of sleep deprivation.

When we sleep, our bodies use the time to create more chemicals and hormones that naturally boost our immune system...when you deprive your body of sleep
you deprive your body of the time to create these chemicals.

The result is a body who's immune system is not firing on all cylinders. So if you are sick often...perhaps you are suffering from this effect of sleep deprivation.

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