Lack of sleep is anything else but harmless

Although we are sleeping almost one third of our life it is the part in our lives we are neglecting the most. Instead of sleeping sufficiently and caring for our sleeping quality we are sleeping far too less and most of the time bad. The assumption that a grown-up gets along well without sufficient sleep is a wide-spread misbelief. Especially during the last couple of years, neurologists and sleep-scientists increasingly have concentrated on the consequences of lack of sleep. Their findings are alarming:

On the one hand, chronical lack of sleep is leading to a lack of performance. This damages working life as well as private life and the psyche, not least. Furthermore, lack of sleep leads to increased sleep disturbances. Beginning with fall asleep disturbances, to sleep through disturbances and to sleeplessness due to anxiety states more than fifty kinds of sleep disturbances are known. Sleep disturbances damage the cardiovascular system and lower life expectancy. Due to permanent tiredness during the day, people with a lack of sleep are living with an increased accident risk, in traffic as well as on the working place.

The recommended sleep duration for a grown-up is from seven to eight hours per night, but, there are also people who need less sleep. This average value says little about the individual sleep behavior of the single person. Some need more, some need less sleep. But, if you constantly feel tired and worn out you clearly suffer under a lack of sleep. This often leads to unrealistic optimism or misjudgement of reality. Possibly this might be the reason why negative consequences of the own behavior are insufficiently perceived. After staying up too long you will have the same effect like when drinking too much of alcohol, your reaction and your decision-making ability are noticeably impaired.

Further negative effects are overweight or memory-impairment. Since their physical and mental development is slowed down, the consequences of lack of sleep are especially huge for children.

In the beginning, consequences of lack of sleep may seem harmless but sooner or later they develop into severe problems and may permanently damage health.

This post is also available in / Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch in: German