Consequences Of Too Little Sleep

Dreaming accounts for 20% of our sleeping time.

The length of dreams can vary from a few seconds to almost an hour. During REM sleep, the brain is highly active. The muscles are paralyzed, and the heart rate increases. Breathing can become erratic. 

Although eight hours is the common mention, optimum sleep can vary from person to person and from age to age.

One review that worked through 320 research articles concluded 7 - 9 hours of sleep are enough for adults. According to experts, too little or too much sleep can both have a negative impact on your health.

It's based on the idea that by partitioning your sleep into segments, you can get away with less of it.

Though it is possible to train oneself to sleep in spurts instead of a single nightly block, it does not seem possible to train oneself to need less sleep per 24-hour cycle.

Caffeine works primarily by blocking the action of a chemical called adenosine, which slows down our neural activity, allowing us to relax, rest, and sleep.

By interfering with it, caffeine cuts the brake lines of the brain’s alertness system. Eventually, if we don’t allow our body to relax, the buzz turns to anxiety.

• Various studies point out that sleep influences two appetite hormones, leptin (to decrease appetite) and ghrelin (to stimulate appetite), which is also known as the hunger hormone.
• Lack of sleep is associated with higher levels of ghrelin and lower levels of leptin, making the person more likely to overeat.

• Sleep-deprived people crave for and also end up eating more carb-rich foods and sugar.
• Sleep duration affects the release of insulin in the body, that affects our glucose levels, and prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes.
• Research shows that exercise prevents the damage done by lack of sleep and also makes one eat less.

To stay healthy, one has to sleep more and also do regular exercise.

The first purpose of sleep is restoration.

Every day, your brain accumulates metabolic waste as it goes about its normal neural activities. Sleeping restores the brains healthy condition by removing these waste products. Accumulation of these waste products has been linked to many brain-related disorders.

The second purpose of sleep is memory consolidation.

Sleep is crucial for memory consolidation, which is responsible for your long term memories. Insufficient or fragmented sleep can hamper your ability to remember facts and feelings/emotions.

REM, the Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep happens when our eyes are moving fast; we are said to be dreaming in that stage.

NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement) is the stage of sleep when we are in deep sleep and are not moving. In this stage, our brain is able to clear toxins and consolidate memories.

Thomas Edison said that sleep is "a bad habit." Like Edison, we seem to think of sleep as an adversary and try to fight it at every turn. The average American sleeps less than the recommended seven hours per night, mostly due to electric lights, television, computers, and smartphones. 

However, we are ignoring the intricate journey we're designed to take when we sleep.

When we fall asleep, the nearly 86 billion neurons in our brain starts to fire evenly and rhythmically. Our sensory receptors become muffled at the same time.

The first stage of shallow sleep lasts for about 5 minutes.

• Lack of sleep can result in a feeling that our space is being invaded, leading to us distancing ourselves from others, physically.
• The region of the brain which is responsible for compassion and sociability is less active in those with sleep deprivation.
• Other people perceive those with sleep deprivation as socially 'repulsive' and surprisingly start to show the same symptoms if they deal with them for a while.

• Basal metabolism is the energy our body needs to keep our cells working and accounts for 65-80% of most adults' caloric consumption.
• The thermic effect of food is the energy our body uses to process food and accounts for 10% of most adults' caloric consumption.
• Physical activity accounts for 10 - 30 % of most people’s caloric consumption .

Not everyone overeats and becomes overweight, and not everyone who becomes overweight or obese develops illnesses like diabetes or heart disease. 

There was never a special diet, exercise regimen, or supplement that worked universally to control weight. Through trial and error, we have to discover habits and routines we can stick with that help us eat less and move more. 

If you can go outside, even for a walk around your home, make use of that. It is extremely important to get some sunlight absorption in your body, as it prevents depression and sluggishness while ensuring a healthy level of melatonin and serotonin in your brain.

Having a new routine can be refreshing for a few days but it gets hard to maintain it.

It is imperative that we stick to a routine, shower, and dress every day, preferably waking up early, and at the same time.

• Stabilize your blood sugar, by eating hearty food (protein and fat) more often.
• Reduce refined carbs and increase fats and proteins.
• B-complex vitamin supplements can give you an immediate boost in alertness and mental clarity.
• Soak in an Epsom salt bath - might even help you get enough energy to exercise the next day.
• Drink more water than you usually do to help compensate.
• Exercise is the single best way to “take out the trash” in your body, and after staying up more hours than you should.