Sleep

Should you look in the mirror in the morning and discover that you have big black circles beneath your eyes, your energy level is very low and it is hard to think straight, you may be experiencing a medical condition referred to as sleep deprivation. This problem is brought on by lack of sleep and can badly affect both your brain and your body. Due to some reasons, some people suffer from lack of sleep where either they cannot sleep for more than a couple of hours or they do not sleep for more than a couple of hours because of their schedule.

Some may not know it, but there are 10 surprising effects of sleep loss:

• Sleepiness causes accidents
• Sleep loss dumbs you down
• Sleep deprivation can lead to serious health problems
• Lack of sleep kills sex drive
• Sleepiness is depressing
• Lack of sleep ages your skin
• Sleepiness makes you forgetful
• Losing sleep can make you gain weight
• Lack of sleep may increase risk of death
• Sleep loss impairs judgment, especially about sleep

Studies show that over time, people who are getting six hours of sleep, instead of seven or eight, begin to feel that they’ve adapted to that sleep deprivation – they’ve gotten used to it. But, in their tests of mental alertness and performance, they continue to go downhill. So, there’s a point in sleep deprivation when we lose touch with how impaired we are. Caffeine works well in keeping people awake for a short time but it doesn’t work for longer durations. Health care professionals suggest the taking of stimulants or short naps or a combination of both to combat sleep deprivation, but getting more sleep is the only real cure.