How high do you rate a good night’s sleep when it comes to health? Today’s society has a tendency to burn the candle at both ends, trying to ‘do it all’ and relying on that next cup of coffee to get them through the day (their adrenals certainly don’t appreciate that!). Common excuses that easily take priority over sleep – “one more email to send”, “one more hour of work/study”, “one more episode of Game of Thrones”… the list could go on. Family responsibilities, work, household duties and email chew threw those critical hours of sleeping time.
The most important hours of sleep are between 9pm – 1am
While you may justify a few hours here and there won’t make a difference, let me tell you – it does. The body does not contain a sleep bank, you cannot pay back those vital hours lost. Sure we know that 8 hours sleep per night is supposed to be good for us, but how often do you make a conscious effort to be in bed at a reasonable hour? Sleep deprivation carries both long and short-term consequences, perhaps the points below might make you re-think a few things.
1. Increased appetite – Insufficient sleep enhances the pleasure response process in the brain, meaning the desire to consume food increases. 2 major hormones involved in regulating food intake are ghrelin and leptin. Leptin supresses the desire for food, and ghrelin is the ‘hunger hormone’. Inadequate sleep throws these hormones out of whack.Research has shown that even after one night of sleep deprivation, ghrelin significantly increases – and so do feelings of hunger.
2. Sugar cravings – Sleep loss impairs glucose metabolism, resulting in blood-sugar dysregulation. This means your sugar cravings will sky rocket and you will be hunting down every chocolate bar in the house! The long-term effects of this include an increased risk of developing insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and weight gain.
3. Weight gain – I recently attended a seminar in Sydney where they discussed sleep quality and how it impacts the body’s ability to burn fat. One of the (many) key points I learnt was that anabolic fat burning occurs at night when you sleep. Now I’m not saying sleep is the only problem associated with weight gain – but it is something to keep in mind. If you are exercising and eating well but not seeing many results, adequate sleep may just be something to consider.
4. Accelerated ageing – Chronic sleep loss accelerates the ageing process. Ageing can be viewed externally as hanging eyelids, red eyes, swollen eyes, darker circles under the eyes, paler skin, more wrinkles/fine lines, and more droopy corners of the mouth … another late night doesn’t sound so tempting now hey? More importantly, signs that appear outside of the body reflect what is happening on the inside. So if your skin is looking tired, dull and lifeless, there is most likely a whole lot of inflammation and ageing happening in your cells and organs.
5. Stress and Mood Disturbances – Sleep deprivation decreases our psychological threshold for the perception of stress. If you are sleep deprived, you may feel more overwhelmed than usual. Your ability to cope with normal daily tasks may be more challenging and emotions such as short tempers, irritability, depression and teariness are exacerbated. Anxiety has the ability to affect sleep, however insufficient sleep can amplify anxiety – particularly in those prone to worrying.
6. Poor memory & concentration (also known as ‘Brain Fog‘) – Evidence suggests insufficient sleep depletes our cognitive capacity. Signs may show as decreased alertness, attention and memory recall. So perhaps pulling a ‘all nighter’ of study before an exam is more detrimental than helpful?
7. Increased blood pressure – Research has shown sleep debt can increase blood pressure. This is something to be mindful of if you already have hypertension.
8. Low energy and fatigue – Energy levels and performance is affected with both short and long term sleep deprivation. Fatigue will particularly be exacerbated when your adrenals are also burnt out due to lack of cortisol production.