How Poor Sleep Can Negatively Affect You

We hear all kinds of concerns about the potential damage to the brain when a person takes a whack to the head, but a recent study out of Sweden showed that just one night of being deprived of a good night’s sleep can have the same effect on your brain as a mild concussion. So imagine the damage of continuous poor sleep.

The Swedish study was in a lab and involved 15 guys that were healthy. One night they were allowed their full 8 hours of sleep while the next night they were deprived of sleep. They stayed awake by watching movies, reading or playing games. After, they had been up all night, blood samples were taken, which showed that some neurochemical marker levels that were related to brain damage rose by a whopping 20% compared to those who slept a full eight hours.

In addition, dysfunctional sleep patterns are directly linked to a number other health problems. Your lymphatic system is up to ten times more active while you sleep, which removes toxins and debris from your cells. If you aren’t sleeping properly, your brain is not able to clean itself and you will either feel sick or have brain fog the next day.

The Effect Of Sleep On HGH Levels

It is while you sleep that your body also increases its production of HGH. When you are sleep deprived your HGH production decreases and since human growth hormone plays an important role in slowing the aging process, you run the risk of reduced energy, increased wrinkles, less lean muscle mass and more body fat and all the other signs of aging. If you want to maximize your body’s HGH production, you can take an HGH supplement. When you are sleeping well, you’ll maximize the benefits, and when you are sleeping poorly, it can minimize the negative effects. Remember, just losing a little sleep can limit your ability to produce HGH.

HGH also affects your muscles, nails, hair and skin so when you are producing enough HGH you’ll see improvements here. The more you sleep the younger you’ll look. It seems it’s called ‘beauty sleep’ for a reason. When you are deprived of sleep, your testosterone levels significantly decrease as well and like HGH, this is another important hormone

The good news is that your brain is able to bounce back from those all nighters as long as they are only occasional. If it’s repeated regularly and long term, then you can expert more damage and that damage will be lasting. You need 7 – 8 hours of sleep every night if you want to keep your body and your brain healthy. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, you are more likely to skip your workouts and crave junk food.

Why Sleep Is Very Important?

Getting proper sleep improves your memory and your ability to learn. Sleep will help your brain commit any new information you receive to your memory using what is called memory consolidation. In studies those individuals who slept after learning a new task, later on did better on tests related to that subject.

Weight gains is linked to poor sleeping habits. When you suffer chronic sleep deprivation, it affects how your body stores carbohydrates and because your hormone levels are altered by poor sleep, it can also affect your appetite. Lack of sleep causes your metabolism to slow. All of these combined can cause weight gain.

Proper sleep can also boost your mood and ensure you don’t get those dark circles under your eyes, but it does so much more than that. Sleep loss can make you impatient, irritable, unable to concentrate and just plain moody. Of course, it can also leave you tired.

Our heart health is actually linked to our sleep. Many people are not aware of this. Serious sleep disorders are linked to hypertension, irregular heartbeat, and increase in the amount of stress hormone in the body, known as cortisol. As a result, a person might find they are being treated with medications and the underlying cause is actually linked to poor sleep patterns.

Sleep deprivation can also cause your immune function to falter and this can lead to disease. It is believed that proper sleep can actually help you fight cancer.

Finally, one thing that many don’t think about is safety. Poor sleep means you are more likely to fall, make a mistake, have an auto accident or in general perform in a manner that is less safe.

Getting a good night’s sleep helps your body to function properly including the ability to produce the necessary hormones like human growth hormone and that also plays an important role in your overall health.