Too Little Sleep Harms Your Body – 9 Signs That You Sleep Too Little
Your body is a gossiper that tells if you are getting enough good sleep.
Check out what exactly it means for your skin, brain and weight when the sleep account is in the red zone.
- Brain
Image Source – TM Women
Sleep is a prerequisite for you to remember, learn, concentrate, deal with challenges and be creative. Without enough sleep, your reaction time, error rate and sick leave will increase and you will also have an increased risk of depression and stress. In addition, studies suggest that sleep can protect you from e.g. Alzheimer’s.
- Immune system
Prolonged sleep deprivation will affect the strength and ability of the immune system to protect your body. If you are deficient in sleep, you will be more susceptible to infections and have a harder time fighting them.
- The weight
A minus on the sleep account often gives a plus on the weight. Your sleep-hungry body produces more “Ghrelin”.
Ghrelin is famously known as the “hunger hormone”. and smaller amounts of the hormone leptin, which conversely makes you full. You will typically also have a greater urge for fatty and sweet foods – AND even have more waking hours to eat in.
- Breasts
If you sleep less than six hours a night, your risk of developing breast cancer increases.
This is due to a decreased production of melatonin – a circadian rhythm hormone that the brain produces while you sleep. And melatonin deficiency can accelerate the growth of cancer cells, several studies show.
- The muscles
Your muscles will also lack rest.
When the muscles are tired, your movement and reaction pattern is not as sharp as otherwise. And you will not be able to run, lift or at all provide what you are used to, physically.
In addition, your muscles are not being repaired and strengthened to the same extent by the growth hormone somatostatin, if you do not get enough sleep.
- Skin
Dark circles, multiple lines and zero glow.
If you do not get your beauty sleep, it can be seen on your skin. It simply speeds up the ageing process.
Too little sleep gives you greater amounts of the stress hormone cortisol in the body and it destroys the skin’s collagen. You will also produce smaller amounts of the growth hormone somatostatin, which repairs tissues, muscles and skin.
- The heart
If you suffer from sleep disorders, you will be at a higher risk of experiencing heart problems than people who sleep regularly and longer.
Interrupted or insufficient sleep causes blood pressure and heart rate to rise rather than fall to rest levels, as they should.
- Injuries
Your body will have a much harder time regenerating from physiological injuries after, for example, operations, cancer treatment or pain conditions if it does not get enough sleep.
- Blood sugar
Insulin resistance and diabetes are some of the other unfortunate long-term side effects of lack of sleep because it causes your body to react differently to insulin. Result: Blood sugar levels rise, which can end in i.a. diabetes.