An increasingly hectic life with so many things to do means many problems that undermine our health. Among them is the problem of sleep.
Today's society hardly reaches the common 8 hours of sleep and often we end up doing the small hours.
Under optimal conditions, the psychophysical performance decreases after 16 hours of wakefulness.
Whether you're a university student, a worker or just a TV series lover running a marathon on Netflix, the problem becomes serious if you lose sleep for several days.
According to various studies, sleep deprivation is often due to major changes in one's life, too much work, a period of stress or a high level of anxiety.
But don't worry! If it's something that happens to you sporadically, you don't run any risks, or rather, you won't have major consequences.
What happens, however, if you don't sleep for several days or you sleep too little?
To answer this question, American Randy Gardner decided not to sleep for several days in a row to prove that there would be no consequences as commonly (and rightly) believed. He remained awake for exactly 11 days and 24 minutes. Unfortunately for him he found that not sleeping actually causes several damages, even worrying. Apparently he had to sleep 14 hours on the first day and another 10 hours on the second to recover completely before feeling completely relaxed (although, in the case of serious damage to brain cells, sleeping to recover has no effect, since the damage is irreversible).
Sleep deprivation has devastating effects on our bodies and in the worst cases can lead to death due to heart attacks and strokes.
What happens in these cases consists of several shortcomings even in the simplest activities. Let's see them in detail.
PERCEPTION OF ABSENT RISK
One of the first symptoms that you have not slept enough is fatigue. This sense of fatigue that accompanies us throughout the day can prove much more harmful than expected in activities that require a greater mental lucidity (as for example, while driving). When you are heavily sleepy, inattention due to fatigue tends to cancel the perception of risk, not making us react as we should if not in the very few moments before the accident. Driving without feeling rested is often more serious than driving under the influence of alcohol!
INFLUENCES
Several scientific studies have shown that sleep functions also include the regulation of white blood cells, which are responsible for our immune defences. The absence of sleep leads to a drastic drop in these, with the risk of getting sick more easily and frequently.
EMICRANIES
Similar to the previous point, an excessive lack of sleep leads to waking up often with headaches that accompany us throughout the day. Most of the time they can be annoying and undermine our productivity, but when the pain gets stronger they can be serious sources of distraction.
The absence of sleep causes anxiety
ANXIETY, NERVOUSNESS, AND HALLUCINATIONS
If you do not sleep properly it happens that we often find ourselves in states of aggression and anxiety, which fuel insomnia. As a consequence, we risk not sleeping at all for several days, causing a strong sense of nervousness that harms our social relations and hallucinations.
MEMORY PROBLEMS
Sleeping is a very important activity for our brain, because in this phase the information acquired during the course of the day is consolidated and then it is "sorted" between short-term and long-term memory. Not sleeping causes the lack of these connections, strongly influencing our memory. Also, for this reason, it is always not recommended for students to do the small hours or study the night before an exam, because, without the appropriate hours of sleep, all the information learned will not be stored, resulting in the opposite effect to the desired one.
If you do not sleep, your brain will be damaged.
BRAIN DAMAGE
One of the most dangerous effects is certainly that of irreparably damaging one's own brain. By not sleeping, you don't give your brain a way to recover the energy spent throughout the day (and during the night), leading it to an excessive effort to continue to receive all the information. This effort severely harms neurons to the point of leading brain cells to death.
LACK OF ATTENTION
A particularly tired individual will have serious difficulties in maintaining his attention throughout the day, causing problems both in personal relationships (as in the case of problems of nervousness), and during work. Not to mention that some inattentions can be much more dangerous (do not notice the red light for example). Reflexes also drop abruptly, resulting in a longer reaction time.
LACK OF PLANNING
Due to inattention due to sleep deprivation, it is impossible to plan even the simplest and most basic activities. The continuous inattention due to pain resulting from the absence of sleep does not allow us to reason in a clear mind and to perform simple operations.
DECREASE IN SEXUAL DESIRE
It may seem strange, but U.S. research has shown that poor sleep causes a drastic drop in testosterone levels in men, decreasing sexual desire. Women, on the other hand, have less libido.
CARDIOVASCULAR PROBLEMS
If you do not sleep well enough, you are more exposed to cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks. This is most likely to happen if you are in middle age or already old. Not only that: the absence of sleep can also cause hypertension and brain strokes, damaging the endocrine system.
Reading the different consequences that may arise if you do not sleep well enough, it is easy to understand how any type of sleep disorder should be treated as soon as possible. If the problem is physiological, you should consult your doctor to find a solution. Unless you are in extreme cases, such as not sleeping for several days in a row, you may be able to try herbal teas and infusions or, on medical advice, medications.
But if the problem of insomnia is due to a particular period, in a period of stress, you can try these little tricks to get to sleep quickly.