We live in a sleep deprived society. Although experts recommend that adults get seven to nine hours of sleep a night, nearly a third follow these guidelines.
For some of us, spending so much time between the sheets can seem impossible. Whether you work the night shift, have a new baby who's up at all hours, stay up late studying, or have trouble falling asleep due to stress, you can go days, weeks, or even months without getting a good night's sleep.
For others, sleeping just five or six hours is their modus operandi. Maybe you're feeling fine and don't think you need more sleep, or maybe your schedule is packed to the brim and spending an extra hour or two on the pillow isn't a priority.
Negative effects of not sleeping properly
After sleeping less than seven hours, you may notice that you yawn more than usual or have a short fuse. But hey, it's not the end of the world, is it? The truth is that many of the health problems that can arise from skimping on sleep don't present themselves as immediate cause and effect.
Insufficient sleep wears out your health engine sooner, but it can take many years before you can start to see medically significant symptoms. People who are sleep deprived also tend to develop clinical medical problems later in life, as years of sleep inefficiency catch up with them.
Let's say that after a lifetime of sleeping five hours a night you have a heart attack.
Although lab results indicate that a heart attack was the cause of death, researchers are beginning to connect the dots about how insufficient sleep increased inflammation and atherosclerosis, which contributed to the heart attack. Or, if you die of cancer, the reason you were at higher risk for the disease was because your immune system wasn't functioning optimally due to lack of sleep.
In other words, if you're not getting enough sleep right now but you're not suffering, that doesn't mean you're out of danger. Rather, your bad dream may not have caught up with you yet.
Although getting too little sleep isn't the smoking gun connection, and some people who get too little sleep don't experience negative health consequences, science holds that seven to nine hours is best for most people.
It is also important to note that there is a link between health problems and sleeping too much. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, sleeping more than nine hours is associated with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and mortality.
What can happen if you need more sleep?
First of all, don't worry if you occasionally stay up late hanging out with friends, or have a sleepless night here or there when you're sick or jet lagged. A night of sleep deprivation is not a big deal. Our bodies can always withstand some deviation from the ideal.
But interrupting your sleep regularly does have a price. These are some of the health risks associated with lack of sleep.
Obesity
An October 2018 review, published in the BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, found that people who routinely slept less than seven hours a night were more likely to have a higher BMI and be obese.
When you don't get enough sleep, your body reduces the release of leptin, a hormone that helps suppress appetite and encourages the body to use energy.
Researchers also discovered that insufficient sleep increases levels of the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates appetite and can lead to weight gain. Furthermore, they note that people who don't spend much time in bed have less energy for physical activity during the day. And obesity puts you at greater risk for sleep disorders, which perpetuates the problem.
Diabetes
A November 2016 study, published in the Oman Medical Journal, found an association between lack of sleep and type 2 diabetes.
Sleep-deprived middle-aged and older adults are twice as likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as those who get enough rest. This is because sleep helps regulate glucose and metabolism. Lack of sleep also leads to increased cortisol levels, which can make cells more resistant to insulin.
Cardiopathy
Insufficient sleep contributes to atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque inside the arteries that can restrict blood flow and lead to heart disease, according to a January 2019 study from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Meanwhile, a July 2020 study in Psychosomatic Medicine found that people who spend minimal time sleeping also have a presión highest arterial. Over time, this leads to more plaque that blocks the coronary arteries.
So it's no surprise that a September 2019 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology revealed that people who sleep little have a 20 percent increased risk of heart attack.
compromised immunity
A September 2015 study in Sleep found that people who slept six hours a night or less were four times more likely to catch a cold. In fact, researchers determined that sleep was the strongest predictor of illness, more influential than age, stress level, race, education, income, or smoking status.
Lack of sleep reduces the production and release of cytokines, a versatile protein that helps the immune system respond to threats. When you're sleep-deprived, your body can't act as quickly or release as many cytokines to counteract any problems it may have.
Lack of sleep can not only increase the chance of getting sick after being exposed to a virus, but it can also lengthen the time it takes you to recover from illness.
reduced cognitive function
In the short term, skimping on sleep affects your ability to concentrate, retain information, and synthesize new ideas ; you're also more likely to make mistakes. When you sleep less than six hours, your reaction time slows by 30 percent, and it worsens exponentially the less you sleep.
That's because your brain undergoes a major recharging process when it's unconscious. During deep sleep, your neurons and cells in your cortex fire and then fire in a pattern we call slow waves. This slow wave motion allows cerebrospinal fluid to seep into the cortex and flush out toxins that build up in the brain.
If you reduce your deep sleep, these toxins aren't properly eliminated. As a result, your thinking won't be as sharp the next day. Furthermore, according to an April 2018 NIH report, one of the toxic proteins cleared during deep sleep is associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Bad mood
Not getting enough sleep can lead to irritability and anxiety. It undermines your ability to properly regulate stress hormones, and your cortisol levels rise.
Lack of sleep can also affect your social and family life. It affects our emotional reserve and adds to interpersonal problems. When we are sleep deficient and our cortex, the thinking part of the brain, is not well rested, we cannot control the more primitive parts of the brain.
In other words, you're more likely to regret it, become defensive, and make bad decisions , which is a recipe for difficult relationships.
How many hours of sleep do you really need?
Sleep is not one-size-fits-all; how much you need depends on your age, lifestyle, and genetics. From birth to 18 to 20 years of age, we go through a neurodevelopmental process and need more than seven to nine hours of sleep.
Older people tend to need less sleep at night because they sleep the nap during the day.
Tu menstrual cycle it can also influence sleep: women may need more rest before and during their period. Pregnant women and High performance athletes they also need to spend more time under the covers.
But for most of us, our ideal sleep time comes down to DNA. It's genetically determined based on your chronotype, or biological clock. It varies from person to person, so you might feel energized after seven hours of sleep, while your partner is grumpy after less than eight. The idea that everyone needs eight hours of sleep is a myth: sleep is personalized.
In an October 2019 study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers identified a "short sleep" gene . People with this genetic mutation can sleep for only four to six hours without any negative side effects. However, this variant is incredibly rare, affecting only about half a percent of the population.
But what about people who claim they only need five hours of sleep and feel fine in the morning? Consider this a wake-up call. There's also a survival mechanism in your brain that tells you to get over tiredness, even if you're sleep deprived, so you could be kicking in. So you should probably go to sleep earlier.
Use this formula to determine the right amount of sleep for you.
Most people go through five sleep cycles each night. Each cycle lasts between 80 and 120 minutes, with an average of 90 minutes. Since it takes the average person 7.5 hours to go through five 90-minute sleep cycles, it's ideal to use 7.5 hours as your initial sleep set point.
Now take your normal wake up time and go back 7 hours. Make that your bedtime. For example, if you need to get up at 5:6 am, you should go to bed at 30:11 pm Stick to this bedtime for 00 days. If, after 10 days, you wake up without an alarm clock and feel refreshed, then you have identified the right amount of sleep for you.
If you still need an alarm to wake up, it may indicate that your sleep cycles are longer than 90 minutes. Increase your bedtime by half an hour and after 10 days check if you wake up naturally. Continue experimenting in 10-day intervals until you reach your ideal bedtime.
If you still feel sluggish in the morning after sleeping for nine hours, it could indicate a sleep disorder or a medical condition that's preventing you from getting adequate rest. In that case, it's a good idea to talk to a doctor.
Is it really bad to sleep less than the recommended amount?
The answer lies in how much sleep you personally need, and how much less than you're actually getting. As long as you feel good, I don't think it's a bad thing. Does anyone remember the last time they slept for 7 hours?
But if you're getting less sleep than your body and brain need to recover and reset, that's a different story. For example, if you figure you need seven hours of sleep and you only get five, that's pretty bad. And if you feel bad, that's a red flag.
Even so, it's not always obvious when you're overly tired. Caffeine can not only trick you into thinking you've rested enough, but eventually, feeling sluggish will become your new normal, and you won't realize you're not as alert as you could be.
Science has revealed that by not getting enough sleep, we are reducing the opportunity to achieve our best lifetime health trajectory.