Together these can throw our circadian rhythms out of whack! Before you know it, 11pm becomes 1am and then it’s 2am over the weekends and we start sleeping in much later. Work, social commitments, mobile screens, social media and TV shows push our bedtimes on a regular basis. But sleep needs differ between individuals so keep in mind that you may need a little more or less than the average. The National Sleep Foundation provides some guidelines on the recommended sleep duration for your age. Know thy magic numberĮvery age group has different sleep needs. So, sleep is the underappreciated hero that everyone needs more of! But how to get a better night’s sleep? 1. Poor sleep is associated with lower life expectancy. Large population studies indicate increased risk of heart attacks and strokes related to sleep loss. There is also a relationship between shorter sleep time and impaired glucose tolerance, a key issue in diabetes. For example, sleep loss leads to an increase in ghrelin levels, a hormone responsible for stimulating appetite. A greater degree of sleep deprivation is possibly associated with greater adverse effects on health. Sleep loss can put you at risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and several other chronic medical conditions. You risk developing serious health problems Sleep deprivation can impair the central and peripheral nervous system, making you perceive others as threatening. That’s not all! Sleep deprivation not only affects your mood, but also your ability to interpret and understand emotional signals.įor instance, after one night of sleep deprivation, participants in a study had trouble distinguishing whether facial expressions were threatening or non-threatening. Treating sleep problems can help with reducing depression and its symptoms. In fact, depression is overrepresented in people with sleep disorders, and insomnia is a risk factor for developing or recurring depression. It can also lead to problems with relationships. Regular sleep loss can increase negative mood states, which basically means you might feel more irritable. Grumpy, cranky, tired or just plain annoyed after a bad night of sleep? You are not alone! Your mood is disturbed (and so are your emotional responses) Sleep loss often results in reduced awareness of the environment and situations. More than one Australian dies every day due to drowsy driving or industrial accidents related to sleep deprivation. This prevents you from being alert and reduces reaction time, sometimes with dire consequences. Microsleeps usually occur when you are sleep deprived (due to a build-up of homeostatic sleep drive), getting longer until you get full sleep. Have you every decided to stay awake late into the night to complete an assignment, but woken up the next morning with only 10 sentences on your screen? That’s probably because your body experienced “microsleeps”, brief episodes of sleep while you are awake. Your reaction time is reduced (and your risk of accidents increases) In brief, sleep loss can impair attention and concentration, reducing your capacity for reasoning and problem solving. So you might pull an all-nighter to study for an exam, but forget details on the day because your hippocampus didn’t encode those memories.Įven one night of partial sleep deprivation impacts your executive functioning. Lack of sleep reduces activity in your hippocampus – the memory centre of the brain. It also affects your memory and your ability to retain information. Being tired and not sleeping well disrupts genes that govern circadian rhythm, effectively reducing your ability to perform a task. On World Sleep Day, Prerna Varma and Hailey Meaklim, PhD researchers in the RMIT Sleep Lab, explain just what happens to your brain and body when you are sleep deprived. Lack of sleep – whether it’s due to working late hours, social commitments, or sleep disorders like insomnia – not only makes you groggy and cranky, but it can also put your overall health at risk. Inadequate sleep affects an estimated 7.4 million Australian adults, costing our economy over $45 billion annually. After all, a little tiredness didn’t hurt anybody, right? Wrong! But while we often discuss food and physical fitness, sleep gets far less focus. Fees and scholarships for international studentsĪlong with diet and exercise, sleep is one of the three key pillars of health.Respect for Australian Indigenous cultures.
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