How important is sleep

How important is our precious sleep at night?  I have a feeling that some think its right up there with gold, while others could care less how much they get.

Sleep can be very underestimated until it is something you find yourself struggling to get.  There can be many reasons someone is not sleeping:
-New baby, or kids in general
-New job, or work in general
-Stress
-Caffeine intake
-New puppy
-Neighbors making noise
-Spouse making noise
-And the list can go on and on

So, you miss a night or 2 or 3 or week of a good night sleep.

What can really happen?

• Increased risk of car accidents
• The National Sleep Foundation claims that sleep related accidents kill more than 1,500 people each year.
• Weight gain


• Lack of sleep increases your appetite.  Ghrelin stimulates hunger and leptin signals satiety to the brain and suppresses appetite.  Shortened sleep time is associated with decreases in leptin and elevations in ghrelin.
• Decreased attention span
• The extra cortisol in our bodies make it hard to concentrate.
• Decreased learning capacity
• It is hard to pay attention when you are struggling to stay awake.
• Low sex drive
• As our hormones get thrown off with the lack of sleep it lowers our endorphins which tend to make us feel good and confident.
• Depression
• Insomnia is typically the first sign of depression.
• Aged skin
• The less we sleep to more or bodies release cortisol which can break down skin collagen.
• Forgetfulness
• Not only will it be hard to stay awake but hard to concentrate on our daily life.
• Poor judgment
• Its harder to make wise decisions when we cant concentrate because of low sleep.
• Increased risk of sickness
• When our bodies are not going through the full sleep cycle and repairing ourselves we are more apt to get sick.
• Anxiety
• Since we cannot concentrate properly we tend to be over anxious.
• Mood swings
• Since our endorphins (feel good hormones) are lower we are not as happy.
• Sleep apnea
• Since our body is not recovering at night it starts to shut down and the typical increase in weight lack of sleep causes.
• Narcolepsy 
• Since your chronically fatigued your body will want to sleep when it needs it.
• Higher risk of many chronic diseases
• diabetes
• heart disease
• heart attack
• stroke
• heart failure
• irregular heart beat
• high blood pressure
• and possibly death

I guess its time for me to get to bed!

Other resources to read up on sleep:
My previous post on the sleep cycle
Sleep and weight gain
Sleep and your memory
Sleep disorders

Have a great night!