What Is Sleep Deprivation?
Sleep deprivation is a term which refers to your body suffering from a lack of sleep. Sleeping is how your body naturally repairs itself and keeps itself fully operational. Just think of it as a recharge time, if you don’t recharge your phone then it’s not going to work. Your body is much the same.
How Much Sleep Should I Be Getting?
The amount of sleep that each of us requires can vary dramatically, and is different for each individual person. On average an adult requires around 8 hours sleep to feel properly rested. However some people only need as few as 5 hours sleep, while others require a whopping 10 hours a day. With this in mind, if you want to find your ideal sleep length then trying to sleep for 8 hours and then adjusting as appropriate is probably the best course of action.
The amount of sleep you require also changes depending on how old you are. For example, infants can require up to 16 hours of sleep a day, and teenager require more than the average at around 9 hours a day. This shows that the amount of sleep changes as you age, as well as being very much down to the individual.
So What Are The Effects Of Sleep Deprivation?
The effects of sleep deprivation are numerous and can affect all parts of every-day life. These negative effects manifest themselves both physically and mentally, and can seriously impact your health and lifestyle.
Since just one sleepless night can put you in a bad mood, it’s no surprise that concurrent sleepless nights can lead to more serious changes in your mood. Your lack of sleep will not only leave you irritable and drowsy but can also lead to depression. Depression is a serious mental illness that can have a devastating impact on your personal wellbeing. This makes avoiding sleep depression all the more important for living a full and happy life.
Sleep deprivation also has a negative impact on our immune systems, leaving us vulnerable to illness. On top of this, a chronic lack of sleep will also increase your perception of pain. This shows just how important good sleep is in maintaining a healthy body, as you’ll be feeling weak and run-down in no time without it.
There are also multiple long-term health risks associated with sleep deprivation. A higher risk of of obesity, heart disease and diabetes have been linked to routinely not getting enough sleep. On top of that, it has also been linked to a shorter life expectancy.
Limiting Your Ability To Function Normally
The effects of sleep deprivation reach out into many aspects of everyday life, limiting what you are able to do. For example, if you are sleep deprived you are much less able to drive safely. This can affect your driving as much as being under the influence of alcohol, so it’s a serious safety concern.
If you suffer from sleep deprivation then you will also find that alcohol affects you much more. This means you will get drunk much quicker, which can be dangerous as you may not know your limits.
Sleep deprivation also negatively affects fertility and can greatly reduce your sex drive. Your fertility is affected by your body producing less reproductive hormones, and this applies to both men and women. A simple lack of energy is proven to lower sex drives in both genders as well, meaning that being severely under-slept will greatly hamper any attempts to conceive.
Catching Up On Lost Sleep
There’s only one thing to do if you’re not getting enough sleep, and that’s to sleep more. It might seem obvious but that doesn’t make it any less important.
However, a single lie-in won’t solve your problems if you are routinely under-slept. You’ll need to build up your sleep over a period of time to counter the effects of sleep deprivation. The best to think about it is as a sleep debt. Over a length of time you’ve gone into your sleep overdraft, so it might take a little while to sleep your way out of it.
You should try and let yourself sleep as much as your body wants to, without using alarms to wake up. Therefore it’s probably best to start doing this on a weekend. At first you could be sleeping for around 10 hours, but as you do this more and more, your body will build up its sleep reserve. Once this happens, the amount you’re sleeping should level off to a more consistent length.
For more information on how a lack of sleep can affect your health, visit the NHS website by clicking here.