Tag: Sleep Deprivation

HomeAll PostsTag: Sleep Deprivation

Sleep Deprivation and High Blood Pressure

Sleep Deprivation and High Blood Pressure

Sleep Deprivation and High Blood Pressure

cartoon diagram of the effects of sleep deprivation has on the bodyYou may think that sleep deprivation and high blood pressure aren’t related, but it is a possibility that they are very closely related. If you get fewer than five hours of sleep at night, you are likely to have high blood pressure or at least at a higher risk of developing it. Sleep has an effect on many things including mood, your ability to remember things and to simply function throughout the day. When you are sleep deprived you are not able to do the things that you normally do with efficiency or with a speed that you may normally be able to complete tasks. That is because sleep helps your body to regulate your stress hormones and helps to keep you healthy. It also helps to regulate your nervous system.

Getting enough sleep can help to treat high blood pressure if you already have it or to prevent it. Sometimes despite your best intentions to get enough sleep you are not getting a good, high-quality nights rest, due to sleep apnea. You may not even realize you have it until you visit the doctor. If you feel tired when you are getting enough sleep every night, it could be a sign that you need to have a conversation with your doctor. Not getting enough sleep has been linked to higher levels of stress and stress tends to bring on all kinds of health-related issues.

Get a Better Night’s Rest

There are many different ways to get a better night’s rest. The first step is to determine what is causing you to wake up tired and sleep deprived. If your mattress is uncomfortable, you may want to consider getting a new one. The cost of a new mattress will be much less than having to go to the doctor for various ailments plus you will avoid all the discomfort. You may live on a busy street, and the noises and sounds may be preventing you from getting a good night’s rest. It is also important to keep your room cool at night so that you get a more deep sleep. The ideal temperature should be between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit. This also counts for those cat naps.

You can invest in a sound machine that plays peaceful music or static to help drown out the offensive noises and sounds. Maybe your pillow is the problem. A pillow is much less expensive than having to get your back and neck adjusted at the chiropractor repeatedly. And you won’t have to miss work because of debilitating migraines.

Sleep is a very important part of our lives, and you spend as much as a third of your life sleeping. High blood pressure is the culprit behind strokes, heart attacks, heart failure and kidney damage in many cases so it is very important to keep it under control. Check out some other effects of sleep deprivation can have on your body and life here.

Don’t Believe ‘Sleep is for the Weak’: Sleep Deprivation Isn’t a Sign of Strength

Don’t Believe ‘Sleep is for the Weak’: Sleep Deprivation Isn’t a Sign of Strength

sleep deprivation

Sleep Isn’t For The Weak & Sleep Deprivation isn’t Strength

We’ve all been there: staring at a screen or paper, clutching our oversized cup of coffee, and quietly chanting ‘sleep is for the weak’ in hopes that we can pull through and get our studying done, or finish some left over paperwork. This couldn’t be more wrong. So why is sleep so important? What are the risks of going without? How do I do better? This article will cover all of that and more.

Why Is Sleep So Important?

Sleep affects your life in many ways. It’s absolutely vital to maintain mental health, physical health, and safety.

When you sleep, your brain is preparing itself for the next day by making new pathways and connections that help you take in and retain information. In other words, it makes it easier to learn, pay attention, and make decisions.

It doesn’t just affect your brain, it affects the rest of your body too! sleep helps with repairing your heart and blood vessels, keeps your risk for obesity and diabetes low. Sleeping keeps your hormones at the appropriate levels too keep your muscles healthy, supports growth and development, and keeps your immune system in working order..

The most notable aspect of sleep is how it makes you function. It’s vital to doing everything from going to a lecture to driving to work, to talking to a friend. Maintaining a healthy sleeping pattern can help you get a lot more done so you don’t have to try to do all of it at the last moment (I’m looking at you college students.)

The Dangers Of Sleep Deprivation

Most of us are very familiar with sleep deprivation, some more than others. Sleep deprivation can affect a wide range of people, especially those that have strict schedules or sleep disorders.

As great as sleep is for you, sleep deprivation does the opposite. It takes it’s toll on your work, school, and social function. It makes it extremely hard to carry out tasks and do anything safely like driving or operating machinery, as well as control mood swings or depression.

It also causes something called ‘micro-sleep’. This refers to brief moments of uncontrollable sleep. While this is absolutely catastrophic when paired with driving, it can also lead to falling asleep in meeting and lectures.

How To Get Better Sleep

One simple tip is to set a schedule. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day gets your body into a rhythm that works wonders. To help with this, you can keep a sleep diary that details how long you slept and how you felt when you woke up. This is great for working out how much you need and setting a rhythm that fits your needs.
If you have a sleep disorder, it’s important to talk to a doctor about them. As great as articles are, it’s important to talk to a professional to figure out what works for you and your unique situation.

So put down your coffee, turn off your computer, and get back to work in the morning. Sleep isn’t for the weak, and when you get enough of it you’ll see a vast improvement in yourself and your work.

Listen to your body – it’s important to know what the symptoms are of sleep deprivation here. Be well!

What is Sleep Deprivation?

What is Sleep Deprivation?

Sleep Deprivation

 

Sleep is one of those activities in life that everyone has in common. All beings – humans and non-humans – need sleep. While most people think they know what sleep is and why it is important, people today report they routinely don’t get enough of it.

Interestingly, sleep researchers are just now really starting to uncover exactly what sleep is and why we need it – a field of study that is now termed the “science of sleep.”

Sleep deprivation, of course, is the term used to describe not getting sufficient sleep, whether it is just for a single night or the deprivation is chronic. This article takes a closer look at what sleep deprivation is, how it affects us and why it is so important to correct sleep deprivation quickly.

What Is Sleep, Exactly?

According to Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine, sleep is characterized by measurable changes in brain waves, heart rate, breath, temperature in the body and similar traits.

There are also different stages of sleep, with REM and non-REM being the major ones that are broken down into sub-categories. These stages are each important for different reasons and each stage is needed in order for nightly sleep to be fully beneficial.

How to Know You Have Slept

Most people are predisposed to trust their own self-reports of personal sleep habits. Yet, actually, it can be surprisingly difficult to pinpoint reasons for not feeling rested in the morning – after all, you were supposedly asleep at the time the problems were occurring!

For this purpose, researchers and sleep experts turn to the sleep study to find out exactly what is going wrong. In a sleep lab, your sleep is monitored to better understand issues with falling asleep, staying asleep, falling back asleep and waking.

Undergoing a sleep study can be particularly important if you feel like you are chronically sleep-deprived but you feel like you are sleeping.

What Is Sleep Deprivation?

At its most fundamental, sleep deprivation is being deprived of (i.e. not able to or allowed to) sleep. When you are not able to get to sleep or to get as much sleep as you need, various symptoms can arise to signal it is time to seek help.

Common Sleep Deprivation Effects

Symptoms of sleep deprivation can vary from mild to severe. The most commonly reported symptom of sleep deprivation is feeling sleepy or mentally groggy during the day.

Many people also experience changes in mood, hunger levels, mental focus, memory issues, physical pain and issues with drowsiness behind the wheel. Some patients can experience disorientation, panic or even hallucinations associated with being chronically deprived of sleep.

Here, it is important to understand that some sleep deprivation effects after just one night can potentially be fatal. The impairment your body and brain experiences when sleep deprived can rob you of higher executive brain functions that control judgment, planning and reaction times and put your heart under stress.

Thank you for reading! We think it’s fun to explore both sides of things to help us learn what best fits us. So if you’d like, check out an article about what happens when we sleep too much here!