Sleep is an essential part of overall health and well being which is very often overlooked.
We all have evenings when we find it hard to fall asleep or find ourselves waking up in the night. How we sleep and how much sleep we need is different for all of us and changes as we get older.
Sleep problems usually sort themselves out within about a month. But longer stretches of bad sleep can start to affect our lives. Lack of sleep and low-quality sleep can cause many worrisome symptoms that we may not immediately link to poor sleep.
Keep reading to see if you have any of the following signs of sleep deprivation.
Memory problems
Memory loss and trouble remembering new information could be signs of poor-quality sleep. The older you get, the more this is going to be an issue. If you’ve been thinking that aging is the only reason you suffer memory loss, try getting better-quality sleep and see if that helps. You might be surprised how much more you’re able to remember when your brain gets the rest it needs to function at high capacity.
Difficulty concentrating
Low-quality sleep can really mess up a person’s concentration. If you have poor focus, are easily confused, and walk around feeling foggy all day, these could be warning signs that low sleep is wreaking havoc on your brain. The older you are, the more low-quality sleep will cause you to suffer focus issues. You may have been able to pull all nighters as a teenager in secondary school and still manage to pass a test the next day. In mid-life that’s much harder to do. Quality sleep is a thinking man’s fuel. If you want better focus, get better sleep at every age.
Feeling anxious and depressed
Long-term sleep disorders can lead to serious mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression. Research shows many mental health disorders are linked in part to low-quality sleep.
Mood swings
Have you been feeling angrier than usual and moodier in general? These could be signs that you’re not getting enough high-quality sleep. Some research suggests that sleep deprivation enhances negative mood due to increased amygdala activity (a brain structure integral to experiences of negative emotions such as anger and rage) and a disconnect between the amygdala and the area of the brain that regulates its functions. That biochemical disruption translates to — the worse your quality of sleep, the crankier you’re going to be.
Rapid aging
A recent study in The National Library of Medicine concluded that long-term poor quality sleep can result in “increased intrinsic aging” — or accelerated signs of the aging process. If you have dark circles under your eyes and more noticeable wrinkles, your sleep deprivation might be making you look older than you are. During quality sleep, your skin gets a bigger supply of blood to restore collagen and repair damage. Without restorative sleep, your skin — the biggest organ of the human body — suffers noticeable consequences.
Morning sickness
Not quite like what pregnant women experience, but someone who suffers poor sleep night after night is going to struggle with mornings, even with extra caffeine. Sometimes this brings on troubling symptoms beyond low energy. If you regularly wake up with symptoms like a sore throat or heartburn, those are clues to what could be causing low-quality sleep. You might have sleep apnea or suffer from acid reflux, especially if you eat within a couple of hours before bed. Getting support for those issues might bring you the sweet relief and the full night’s sleep you need to feel better in the mornings.
Weight Gain
Weight gain is another hormone-triggered symptom of sleep deprivation. Two hormones influenced by sleep are ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin causes feelings of hunger. Leptin decreases hunger. Lack of quality sleep throws these hormones off balance, often triggering your appetite to turn on more often. If you notice you’re feeling hungrier when you don’t get much sleep, it’s because your body’s hunger signals have likely gone haywire. Along with that increased hunger, the types of foods you crave on low-quality sleep could change significantly.
Skin problems
One of the ways lack of sleep messes with your health is on your skin. In addition to looking haggard, you might see pimples and spots pop up more than usual. This is because when we don’t get enough restorative sleep, the body is stressed. As a result, the stress hormone cortisol kicks into high gear. Excess cortisol triggers excess oil production in our skin, leading to breakouts.
Sleep is closely linked to regulation of hormones in the body. Certain hormones are produced or released when we are asleep, therefore when you are not getting sufficient sleep, certain hormonal imbalances may occur and lead to more problems.
Bear in mind that there may be several other reasons for all the symptoms listed above, however, sorting out any sleep problems can help eliminate sleep as a possible cause and help pinpoint any other possible causes.
