7 Effects of Poor Sleep

There are several very harmful effects of poor sleep, some of which may have an impact on your quality of life and take a toll on your daily routine.

In order to maintain good physical and mental health, it’s essential that you get good quality, uninterrupted sleep. This means between seven and eight hours a day.

Overall, this habit allows you recharge your physical and mental energy levels. Plus, it helps prepare your entire body for a new day.

While you rest, your body performs certain functions that aren’t completed during other parts of the day. Meanwhile, other mechanisms that influence your hormone levels are activated.

Unfortunately, many people have difficulty getting on a healthy sleep schedule. Thus, they’re facing consequences during the day that affect their quality of life.

It might be easy to ignore the impacts. However, over time you’ll experience health problems that worsen if you don’t take control of your sleep disorder.

Since many people ignore this, in today’s article we want to discuss seven of the negative effects of poor sleep.

Find out what they are!

1. High blood pressure

High blood preassure
First of all, a lack of sleep, or insomnia, can have repercussions on your cardiovascular health.

This problem could lead to an increase in your blood pressure. This forces your heart to work harder than it should.

  • People who sleep less than seven hours a day usually have a systolic blood pressure of up to 123. Ideally, it should be below 120.

Also read: The 6 best herbs to reduce blood pressure

2. Food cravings

One of the reasons why insomnia is associated with weight gain is because while you should be resting, your cravings for food actually increase.

Not sleeping properly increases your level of leptin. This is a hormone that’s responsible for controlling your appetite once you’ve had enough to eat.

Instead, a hormone that stimulates the appetite known as ghrelin is produced. This causes you to consume more than you should.

3. Reduced energy expenditures

Reduce your energy expenditure
When you don’t get enough sleep, it directly affects your metabolism. Because you also experience fatigue, your energy expenditure goes down.

People with trouble sleeping are less likely to be physically active. Hence, this leads to the build up of fat and excess calories.

If you add that to the food cravings caused by poor sleep, it’s very likely that the sufferer will become overweight.

4. Trouble concentrating

In addition, your brain suffers some of the most negative consequences when you don’t get enough quality sleep.

This decreases its performance during the day. Thanks to fatigue, you can’t concentrate or perform normal cognitive processes.

Over time, poor sleep quality can affect your brain’s ability to remove plaque-forming proteins and cause chronic disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

We recommend you read: How to detect Alzheimer’s in time

5. A weakened immune system

Weak immune system
In addition, the physical exhaustion caused by lack of sleep can directly compromise the health of your immune system. It can decrease its function and increase your risk of contracting respiratory diseases and infections.

Low antibody production makes it easier for viruses, bacteria, and fungi to attack. Thus, so it’s not unusual to get sick after a few days with inadequate sleep.

6. Stress and irritability

The impact of this problem on your emotional health is almost immediate. Thus, it’s not uncommon for a person to become stressed and irritable after a poor night’s sleep.

Lack of rest significantly decreases your production of serotonin and endorphins. These are two hormones that are known to generate feelings of well-being.

Instead, you experience an increase in the production of adrenaline and cortisol, substances that trigger negative emotional responses.

7. Muscle weakness

Muscle pain is one of the effects of poor sleep
During your period of rest, your muscles enter into a state of relaxation that allows them to renew themselves for the challenges of the coming day.

At the same time, growth hormones are also released. These influence your formation of muscle mass.When you don’t sleep well, the absence of these processes causes your muscles to feel weaker and more tired.

Pushing your body too hard without good sleep can lead to even greater physical exhaustion.

It’s best to avoid going to the gym or any high-impact physical activity when you haven’t had good, refreshing sleep.

Are you having trouble sleeping? If so, try to adopt some habits that will help you fall asleep. It might seem like you can withstand a bad night’s sleep. However, after a few days it will begin to take its toll on your body and you will start experiencing the effects of poor sleep. Be careful!

You May Like