How sleep deprivation affects sex, weight, and intelligence

Someone would be happy, but can not find time to sleep, and someone lies down on time, but can not sleep. Both are equally harmful.

When you deny yourself a dream (or a dream refuses you), this, believe me, is not good for the cause. Yes, you work for a long time, but much less productively and at lower speeds. And you are not even able to adequately assess the quality of work due to fatigue. How sleep deprivation affects all areas of life, says our expert.

Sooner or later, we all lose sleep. According to medical criteria, insomnia begins when a person does not sleep three nights a week. As a result, the whole organism suffers and literally all spheres of life are affected.

Intelligence

It is known that during sleep the brain works much more intensively than during wakefulness. There is a direct causal relationship between the content of amyloid in brain tissue and the development of insomnia. Amyloid is a protein that forms plaques that form a cognitive defect and increasing dementia in Alzheimer’s disease. The worse the sleep, the higher the concentration of amyloid in the brain tissue. During sleep, a vital process takes place: the body removes excess amyloids from the brain. People at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease more often complain of sleep problems, daytime sleepiness, night awakenings, than those who do not have a risk of developing this disease.     

Weight

Sleep affects metabolism. One of the consequences of this process is a violation of glucose metabolism and, as a consequence, excess weight. Just one night without sleep can reduce insulin sensitivity by 30%. Limiting sleep time to five hours per night, even for several days, also causes impaired glucose metabolism. The risk of diabetes is increased if a person sleeps less than seven hours during the night. Therefore, sleepy people often want sweets: because of their reduced sensitivity to insulin, glucose does not enter the cells, and the body feels exhausted. Correcting the consequences will require at least a week of healthy sleep.    

Stress level

With a lack of sleep, the sympathetic nervous system is activated. Its activation is necessary for the body to protect against stress, excessive mental stress, increased physical activity.

When excited, the sympathetic nervous system releases the hormone norepinephrine, which increases the pulse, cardiac output, and increases pressure. Rest, sleep, meditation, relaxation and a feeling of true love are factors that activate the parasympathetic nervous system. It arranges the pulse and returns the pressure to normal values. 

If you do not sleep, then the cycles of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems do not alternate, merge – the level of inflammatory cytokines rises, from which the vessels suffer. Since time arterial hypertension has been developing. People with insomnia are at greater risk for coronary heart disease.

Sex

Researchers at a medical school at the University of Michigan (USA) have shown that lack of sleep is the most important factor that negatively affects the desire of women to have sex. During sleep, the production of hormones responsible for sexuality increases. Just one extra hour of sleep increases the likelihood that a woman wants to have sex the next day by 14% .  

In men, this area of ​​life suffers even more due to chronic lack of sleep: the level of testosterone and, consequently, libido is reduced.

Testosterone not only stimulates the male reproductive system. The hormone increases protein synthesis in the muscles, kidneys and liver, affects bone density. Therefore, the underdevelopment of the musculoskeletal system, sexual dysfunction (decreased libido) and degradation of the reproductive system may be the result of a banal lack of sleep.

Health

Violation of proper rest for the body is one of the key factors in reducing immunity. With insomnia, the number of T-lymphocytes participating in the identification and neutralization of “enemies” decreases. Moreover, as we have already said, the level of cytokines responsible for inflammation rises. People who suffer from a lack of sleep react hard even to flu shots. The body simply does not produce enough antibodies.

Insomnia is associated with an increased risk of depression and anxiety disorders. And according to studies by Norwegian scientists, patients with chronic insomnia also have a three-fold increased risk of developing asthma: cortisol, which is also responsible for our breathing, is more active during the day. Perhaps asthma is a response to the “busyness” of the lungs at the wrong time for this.