We all know that getting a good night of sleep is important — no one likes feeling tired from sleep deprivation! However, most gals don’t realize that sleep deprivation can get in the way of leading an optimal, beautiful, and healthy life. Lack of sleep can impact us more than you probably ever realized — from causing us to get fat by overeating, drinking more coffee if we’re tired, and even increasing our chances of disease and sickness due to high inflammation and stress levels. If you don’t sleep enough hours at night, yet you eat well and exercise regularly, you are nevertheless still at risk of major negative health impacts. Click here to see how to get a better night’s sleep.
Do what you can to reverse sleep deprivation and you’ll be on your way to a better life. Below, we describe 3 negative aspects that are a result of sleep deprivation. Get more sleep and you’ll be able to nix these habits, while noticing a better way of life and a more beautiful you!
Negative Aspects Of Sleep Deprivation
1. Overeating
There has been a new wave of evidence suggesting that sleep deprivation is strongly linked with overeating. Numerous recent studies have all shown that sleep deprivation can cause subconscious cravings to eat more. Test subjects who received less than ideal sleep often ate more than 500 more calories a day than the test subjects who received 7-8 hours of sleep a night. There are a lot of theories as to why sleep deprivation leads to overeating, but it almost certainly has to do with the alteration of the levels of hormones that regulate the appetite. Whatever the cause, it is apparent that not enough sleep leads to overeating, which can have several negative impacts on one’s health.
2. Drinking Too Much Coffee
No amount of coffee can prevent you from seeing a lapse of productivity from poor sleep. Sleep deprivation trumps all and will kill your work productivity and make you error-prone. While some career fields see long hours and no sleep as a badge of honor, employee productivity in those fields is often much, much lower than ideal. Studies show people with sleep deprivation are less alert, less able to focus, and have a lower ability to access higher-level cognitive functions. These factors all combine to low performance and errors. Lack of sleep has been attributed to a large percentage of preventable errors, including big disasters like the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Sleep is just now starting to gain recognition as a big influence on worker productivity and the cause of serious workplace errors.
3. Sickness and Disease
Most people do not appreciate the impact that sleep has on our immune system. Little sleep can overcompensate for the benefits of eating a healthy diet filled with vitamins and nutrients. Sleep deprivation leads to higher stress, higher blood pressure, higher inflammation, and a number of other factors that can affect one’s immune system. Studies followed large groups of people over time with different sleeping patterns and found a strong link between sleep deprivation and the incidence of chronic disease. Those who were sleep deprived were much more likely to develop conditions like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. While you may feel you lead an otherwise healthy lifestyle, do not underestimate the impact that sleep can have on your overall health.
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