Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Daily Life
Every adult requires between seven to nine hours of sleep every night. It is a key element for good health, but due to our hectic work schedule and stress, we often tend to sacrifice our sleeping time. Moreover, sleep is often seen as the opposite of being productive. The general perception is that sleeping less and working more is what makes people more successful.
However, if we look at the reasons why we sleep, it’s clear that sleep is essential to have our bodies perform at an optimal state. Lack of sleep has adverse effects on our health and productivity leading to daytime tiredness, lack of focus, and impaired memory.
Let’s take a closer look at the negative effects of sleep deprivation in our life:
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Personal Life
Due to sleep deprivation, the body cannot regulate stress-busting hormones effectively. This means you not only feel stressed out but also become prone to many illnesses — fever, cold, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disorders and more.
Lack of sleep also triggers the body to release higher amounts of insulin, which means greater fat storage and higher risk to Type 2 diabetes. A research by Chicago University, suggests that lack of sleep can lead to weight gain and obesity. The reason, as cited by the research, for undue weight gain is that shortage of sleep triggers hunger and one tends to overeat.
Sleep loss and disruptions in sleep impair the circadian rhythm which can result in impaired performance and heightened risks of accident.
Most of us drive to work, drop children off at school, go to the gym, or for many other reasons. However, driving in a sleep deprived condition is even more dangerous than driving under influence as it increases your risk of meeting with an accident manifold.
There is a clear established link between inadequate sleep and a range of personal, professional, emotional, psychological, and social problems. The best way around these problems is to ensure you get an uninterrupted sleep of anywhere between seven and nine hours. You may need to make a few changes for a healthier lifestyle such as a consistent sleep schedule, regular exercise, healthy diet, and avoiding beverages such as caffeinated drinks, alcohol, tobacco.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Social Life
It’s not just the personal and professional life that gets affected due to perennial lack of sleep. People also suffer emotionally and psychologically. Some of the psychological effects of prolonged sleep deprivation include memory loss, mania, and hallucinations.
Sleep deprived people working as doctors, teachers, or for that matter any profession that has a social impact can have serious effects on the safety of the others. For instance, sleep deprived healthcare providers attending to patients are more prone to making medical errors. Imagine the kind of classes a teacher would take without a proper night’s sleep.
Irritability and emotional instability are an evident fallout of inadequate sleep which can affect the social life of people. This can obliterate work-life balance as well as cause relationships to suffer due to increased stress levels.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation in Professional Life
When you feel exhausted throughout the day and your brain and body feel pressured, your work productivity suffers. Once distracted, you cannot regain focus on the work at hand and become forgetful. You cannot process information quickly and your response time increases, which means your ability to take quick decisions takes a beating.
Due to these affects you may not be taken seriously or worse ignored for worthy projects and can have serious consequences on your professional life. A research by Hult International Business School reveals that sleep deprivation has damaging effects on working professionals as their ability to perform at peak suffers and they even suffer physical and emotional damages — lack of focus and decreased creativity.
Sleep deprivation is also often associated with sudden mood swings and unruly behavior (though not always). Chronic sleep deprivation may manifest itself as being easily irritated and unprofessional interactions with colleagues at the workplace — a definite barrier to professional growth.
As you can see, sleep isn’t just a passive activity and actually maintains your body at peak performance. Also, lack of sleep doesn’t just impact physical and mental capabilities but also impairs personal, professional, and social interactions.
So if you, or a loved one, are feeling the symptoms of fatigue, stress, or daytime sleepiness, or suffering from diabetes or hypertension, it’s wise to check your sleep patterns. You can:
- Take a simple sleep quiz to know if you are getting quality sleep
- Take the Home Sleep Test to know if you have a sleep disorder
