What Happens When You Are Sleep Deprived?

My work promotes "Live to a Healthy 100", but my biggest pet peeve is how they don't seem to care if you get enough sleep & rest. Nurses usually work 10-12 hours a day. How can they get enough rest & sleep that way? And I take call for emergencies at night, while working a 40 hour work week, interrupting my sleep. Here is what sleep deprivation causes:
Can sleep deprivation cause high blood pressure?
Answer from Sheldon G. Sheps, M.D.: Possibly. It's thought that sleeping less than 6 hours a night could be linked to increased blood pressure. People who sleep 5 hours or less a night may be at higher risk of developing high blood pressure or worsening already high blood pressure. There's, also, an increased risk of high blood pressure for people who sleep between 5 & 6 hours a night. It's thought that sleep helps your blood regulate stress hormones & helps your nervous system remain healthy. Over time, a lack of sleep could hurt your body's ability to regulate stress hormones, leading to high blood pressure. Sleeping 7 to 8 hours a night may play a role in the treatment & prevention of high blood pressure. If you feel tired even after a full night's sleep, One possible cause may be sleep apnea, which increases your risk of heart problems & other health issues.
The Surprising Consequences of Sleep Deprivation
Borrowed from: Allison Ford Many people don’t get as much sleep as they should. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation has some side effects & they can’t all be remedied with a little extra caffeine. Doctors & scientists do know that SLEEP is one of our body’s most important processes. Studies show that sleep is important for cellular renewal, helping to replace muscle tissue & dead cells throughout the body. Studies have, also, shown that sleep is a key for the brain to process & archive information, including memories. Deep, restorative REM sleep, the kind associated with dreaming, seems to stimulate regions of the brain used in learning. Every night without adequate rest is like adding to a sleep debt. Eventually it will need to be repaid. Even after one sleepless night, we can feel effects of sleep deprivation: irritability, memory loss, & drowsiness. Continued sleep deprivation can result in trouble concentrating, blurry vision, impaired judgment, & even more severe mental effects. After just a few days without any sleep, people can begin to experience hallucinations, mania, & nausea.
Short-Term Side Effects Not only mental deficits, but our physical abilities are diminished, too. Studies have demonstrated that not sleeping can reduce glucose metabolism by as much as 40%. We use stored glucose for energy & sleep deprivation can interfere with how the body stores & processes it. Sleep-deprived athletes, also, experience high levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, as well as lower levels of human growth hormone, which is important for muscle repair. The immune system is, also, thought to be maintained while asleep; people who don’t get enough sleep tend to be more susceptible to infections & have slower healing times. Sleep deprivation, also, has an effect on how the brain stores information. A study at the University of Pennsylvania showed that mice who were taught a task and allowed to sleep afterward remembered what they had learned better than mice that didn’t sleep. Among school-aged children, those who get even one less hour of sleep than their peers have shown to perform more poorly on tests of memory & attention. Some of the effects of short-term sleep deprivation can be very similar to the effects of being drunk. In 2000, researchers in New Zealand & Australia found that people who drive after being awake for 17 to 19 hours performed worse on tests than people with a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent, almost the legal limit for drunk driving. In fact, the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that as many as 100,000 sleep-related auto accidents occur every year. One study found that sleep-deprived medical interns working on the night shift were twice as likely to misinterpret patients’ test results. There is even evidence that sleep deprivation may have played a part in some major disasters, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Long-Term Consequences It’s easy to erase the short-term effects of sleep deprivation by getting more sleep. However, when people don’t sleep well for weeks, months, or even years, it can have cumulative effects on their health. Sleep has shown to be important in regulating blood sugar levels & people who don’t sleep can become increasingly resistant to insulin. Long-term insulin resistance puts extra burdens on the pancreas to produce more, and eventually can result in type 2 diabetes. Recent studies have, also, linked chronic sleep deprivation to obesity. Sleep has an important effect on the hormones ghrelin & leptin, which control hunger & appetite. When we don’t sleep, these hormones can go out of balance, causing us to eat more than we need. Heart disease, high blood pressure, and depression are other diseases that can result from long-term sleep deprivation.
How do you know if you’re truly sleep-deprived? Sleep experts say that if you feel groggy or tired during the day, feel the urge to nap, or if you fall asleep within 5 minutes of lying down, you could possibly be sleep-deprived. Another symptom of severe sleep debt is the occurrence of “microsleeps,” short bursts of sleep that can happen without a person even realizing it. Although most people think they need to sleep for eight hours a night, the amount actually varies from person to person; some are fine with 5, others would do better with 10. If you feel like you need more sleep, simple lifestyle changes can help you get more. Missing a few hours of sleep on occasion isn’t the end of the world, because it’s easy to make up the sleep with no lasting side effects. Many people are psychologically adjusted to constantly feeling tired, and in the short-term, their bodies may be able to adjust too. But the long-term consequences of sleep deprivation should be enough to convince anyone to get more rest.
Nite Lite® is an incredible multi-purpose product. The ingredients in it are formulated to allow your body to get to the metabolic rate(REM) it needs to be at during the night to repair, restore, & rejuvenate. Our bodies were meant to sleep at night. Most of us don't allow ourselves enough time to sleep. Lack of sleep is one of the quickest ways to age your body & set yourself up for diseases & illnesses. When you drink the Nite Lite® 3 hours after your last meal, just before bed, you will not only enjoy the fat burning, muscle building effects, but you are also getting the anti-carcinogenic & anti-tumorigenic benefits that Nite Lite® has to offer while enjoying the best night sleep that you have ever had. It allows your body to naturally release the Human Growth Hormone. Lack of HGH in the body leads to increased body fat levels. HGH helps to burn fat while sleeping. Nite Lite® enhances the immune system, from the common cold to cancer. Sleep deprivation is the#1 medical problem in the U.S. today. More accidents occur to sleep deprived people.
Gayle Sibat, Winter Springs, FL- Where else can you lose weight while you sleep? I love it! Jeff Holland, Winter Springs, FL- Since taking Nite Lite®, I no longer have sleep apnea.