14 CONSEQUENCES OF NOT SLEEPING FOR PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH - GEOGRAFÍA - 2025

It is well known that the consequences of not sleeping well lead to changes in mood that you may have experienced yourself, as well as a reduction in your performance at work. However, the problems that can be generated by sleeping little are greater than a simple bad mood. Often times, the risks of poor sleep are minimized.

However, a regular lack of sleep puts you at risk for serious medical conditions such as heart problems, diabetes and obesity, as well as serious accidents. A good quantity and quality of sleep is essential for a long and healthy life.

Physical and mental health effects of not sleeping

1-You can get fat

Have you ever thought that little sleep could make you fat?

Studies show that people who sleep less than 7 hours a day are 30% more likely to be obese than those who sleep 9 hours a day.

This is explained by the fact that people with sleep deprivation (either by quantity or quality), produce lower levels of leptin (a hormone that warns us of satiety) and higher levels of ghrelin (the stimulating hormone of hungry).

This causes people with a lack of sleep, to have difficulties when it comes to feeling that they are full and that, therefore, they must stop eating, as well as a greater feeling of hunger.

So now you know, if you want to lose weight, start by sleeping more.

2-Affects your immune system

Sleeping for a few hours or having poor quality sleep can lead to more colds and more illnesses in general. Continued sleep deprivation weakens the defenses, making them less capable of defending the body from external agents.

While you sleep, your immune system produces antibodies and cells to defend against external substances such as bacteria and viruses. If you take away hours of sleep, the body has less time to produce the antibodies to defend your body.

Therefore, sleep deprivation makes you more prone to illnesses, it takes you longer to recover from them and also more prone to chronic illnesses.

3-Affects your mental health

As you may have seen, the day you haven't slept well you feel irritable and in a bad mood. Imagine how you would be if the sleep problems were continuous.

It is not surprising, therefore, that continued lack of sleep (either in quantity or quality) leads to mood disorders such as depression or anxiety.

When people with anxiety and depression were asked how many hours they slept, most answered less than 6 hours a night.

The most common sleep disorder, insomnia, has the highest correlation with depression.

In 2007, a study carried out with a sample of 10,0000 people, found that those who suffered from insomnia were 5 times more likely to develop depression than those who did not have insomnia. In fact, insomnia is one of the first symptoms in depression.

Insomnia and depression feed back on each other, generating a vicious cycle in which lack of sleep fuels depression and depression generates more insomnia.

The good news is that treating sleep problems helps depression and treating depression helps sleep problems.

4-Increases the probability of suffering from diabetes

Physiologically, numerous studies have indicated that lack of sleep also affects the ability to process glucose, which can cause high blood sugar levels and lead to diabetes or weight gain.

5-Reduce your sexual appetite

Sleep specialists explain that lack of sleep in both men and women reduces sexual libido and decreases interest in sex.

In men with sleep apnea (a breathing problem that interrupts sleep), this lack of sexual appetite is greater.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2002 suggests that many men with sleep apnea have lower levels of testosterone.

They have found that men with sleep apnea produce less testosterone during the night, which makes them less likely to have sex.

6-It has consequences on your fertility

It has been found that one of the possible causes of difficulty conceiving a baby is lack of sleep in both men and women.

This is explained because, the lack of sleep for a long period of time, reduces the secretion of reproductive hormones which therefore leads to difficult conception.

So if you're trying to get pregnant and can't, try to spend more time sleeping and seeing what happens.

7-The number of accidents increases

The greatest disasters in history have been caused by lack of sleep: in 1979 the Three Mile Island nuclear accident; the massive oil spill from the tank carrying the Exxon Valdez; in 1986 the Chernobyl disaster, among others.

But lack of sleep is a devastating problem that affects the safety of thousands of people every day on the roads. Lack of sleep can reduce reaction time as much as driving under the influence of alcohol.

The US National Traffic Administration estimates that fatigue is the cause of 100,000 car accidents and 1,550 fatal accidents each year. The most surprising thing is that this type of accident occurs more in people under 25 years of age.

Other studies show how lack of sleep, both in terms of quantity and quality, also leads to a higher number of work accidents. In one study, workers who complained of excessive daytime sleepiness had significantly more workplace accidents. They also had more sick days due to accidents.

8-Decreases learning ability

Sleep plays a fundamental role in cognitive and learning processes. Lack of sleep affects these processes in many ways. First, it affects attention and alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving. This makes it difficult to learn efficiently.

Second, the different phases of sleep play an important role in consolidating the information processed during the day. If you don't go through all the stages of sleep and don't get enough sleep, you probably won't be able to remember what you learned during the day. For this reason, it is said that before an exam, having a good sleep will benefit you more than spending the whole night studying.

9-age your skin

Many people have experienced a change in their skin such as puffy eyes, dark bags around the eyes and weakened skin after a few nights without sleep.

If this lack of sleep is chronic, it leads to a dull, dull, and expressionless face.

When you don't get enough sleep, your body secretes higher levels of the hormone cortisol. In excessive amounts, cortisol breaks down the skin's collagen, which is the protein that keeps the skin smooth and elastic.

Lack of sleep also leads to less secretion of growth hormone. When you are young, growth hormone is important for you to grow and develop. As we age, this hormone helps you increase body mass, strengthen skin and bones.

10-You become less sociable and more pessimistic

Obviously, irritability due to fatigue caused by not sleeping well or not sleeping the necessary hours makes you enter a circle of negativity in which you do not feel like socializing.

Think about the times you have slept badly how you were during the day. You were probably in a bad mood and all you wanted was to get home as soon as possible and get into bed.

11-Limit your creativity and innovation

Paul McCartney wrote the Beatles hit "Yesterday" in his sleep. He dreamed the whole song, then woke up and played it on the piano to record it.

In 1964 "Yesterday" became one of the most listened to songs in the history of music.

It's amazing to think how a simple idea dreamed of one night could have so impacted a culture for decades. Even McCartney himself would never have imagined that he would go to bed that night and that hours later he would wake up to write a song that would make history. But there is more at stake in all this than meets the eye.

The San Diego School of Medicine conducted another study in which they were able to verify that the REM phase encourages creativity in problem solving.

According to this study, creative capacity increases because during this phase of the dream new associative networks are formed that allow establishing new connections and relationships between unrelated ideas, thus generating new ideas. Basic key to creativity.

If you want to increase your creativity, napping and reaching deep sleep can help you achieve it. Think that during sleep moments of genius can occur.

As Kekulé himself said: "Let's learn to sleep and then maybe we'll find the truth."

12-You can have hallucinations

If sleep deprivation occurs for a long period of time, you may experience hallucinations.

Depending on the length of sleep deprivation, approximately 80% of the normal population experiences hallucinations at some point.

Most are visual hallucinations. Unlike people with schizophrenia who often have auditory hallucinations, that is, hearing things that are not there. Sleep deprivation can also generate paranoid thoughts.

In a study carried out in this regard, they found that 2% of a sample of 350 people with sleep deprivation for 112 hours temporarily experienced symptoms similar to those of paranoid schizophrenia.

Fortunately, these symptoms resolve when they get good sleep again. So if you see something that isn't really there during a period

of sleep deprivation, just rest and it will go away.

13-Increases cardiovascular problems

Sleep plays a vital role in your body's ability to heal and repair blood vessels and the heart. Lack of sleep puts you at a higher risk of chronic health problems such as increased blood pressure or heart disease.

According to a study conducted by Harvard Medical School with people with hypertension, one night without enough sleep, they experienced an increase in blood pressure during the next day.

14-Problems in the development of the fetus

The fetus needs large supplies of nutrients and oxygen. When sleep is disrupted, especially when blood flow to the placenta is compromised, significant consequences can occur.

Total sleep deprivation or fragmentation of deep sleep can reduce the amount of growth hormone secreted. With what can cause growth difficulties in the fetus that is trying to develop.

As we know, a decline in oxygen levels in the mother can harm the fetus. When the oxygen in the mother's blood drops, the fetus reacts with slowdowns in the pumping rate of the heart.