Category: Sleep Disorders

How Does Chronic Insomnia Affect Your Health

Chronic insomnia can have greatly impacting effects on human health. It has been linked to many health problems such as depression, stroke, heart attack, obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

Unfortunately, the damaging effects of chronic insomnia remain under-recognized by many people, including some medical professionals.

The obvious symptom of insomnia is lack of sleep, or sleep deprivation. This is not a trivial symptom. When this is chromic, or sustained, the negative health effects are additive and compounding.

 The Under-Recognized Effects of Chronic Sleep Deprivation

If a person suffers with insomnia, their lack of sleep can adversely impact their memory, thinking and learning skills. Research shows that people who are chronically deprived of sleep have been found to be measurably slower in accomplishing mentally challenging tasks.

The ability to complete relatively ‘low-level’ tasks is even affected, as is co-ordination and any function that requires a level of judgement to undertake it. As far as efficiency goes, both speed and accuracy are affected.

Experts from Walter Reed Army Institute of Research also revealed that chronic sleep deprivation can also affect an individual’s moral judgment.

Once an individual’s cognitive and reactionary skills suffer from the impact of sleep loss, it also affects their ability to take the most appropriate action, especially in crucial situations. Part of the reason is that sleep deprivation impairs a person’s ability to properly evaluate and integrate emotion during the decision-making process.

Sleep loss can also trigger migraine, anxiety, depression, irritability and other mental and emotional problems. Any or all of these symptoms will have damaging ongoing effects on all areas of a person’s life, including their work or school performance, personal and professional life.

Effects of Partial Sleep Deprivation

Researchers have stated that having only 4 or 5 hours of sleep each night is considered to be a case of partial sleep deprivation. This condition has been found to trigger the development of chronic inflammation in the body, which is a precursor to many diseases, including diabetes and heart disease.

Partial sleep deprivation can also speed up the aging process. Certainly the visible signs usually attributed to aging are more apparent in those suffering from sleep deprivation!

If you only get five or less hours of sleep each night, your body’s ability to absorb insulin can be impaired, thereby increasing your likelihood of developing insulin resistance and subsequently contracting type 2 diabetes. For those people who already have diabetes, sleep deprivation will only worsen the symptoms that they are experiencing.

The Sad Truth about Self-Inflicted Sleep Problems

 What is even more troubling about some cases of chronic insomnia is that quite often it is caused by self-inflicted sleep problems.

Unhealthy lifestyles are often a large component of the often complex factors which contribute to an insomnia problem. Stress, poor diet, too much alcohol and caffeine, not enough exercise – all this can add up to poor sleep.

While it is tempting and easier to externalize the blame for insomnia, or attribute it to ‘health problems’ beyond your control, there are almost always steps that can be taken to at least mitigate the situation.

If you do have a problem with insomnia, take a look at your lifestyle and see what you can ‘fix’ to improve it. Your health will thank you for making the appropriate changes, and it is better than heading to the pharmacy for that ‘quick-fix’ sleeping pill.

So, if you don’t want to suffer with the side effects of chronic insomnia and being sleep deprived all the time, make some changes today!