5 Reasons Why Poor Sleep Habits Are A Big Deal

Details: Written by Jane Brown

sleep bb If you wake up feeling tired and not at your best, and would rather go back to sleep than get dressed and go to work, you’re not alone. Insufficient sleep has become such a deep-rooted part of our busy lives that billions of people in Western societies don’t even think much about how little sleep they’re getting night after night.

If you don’t get enough sleep occasionally, it would not be a big issue because you could make up for it later. But if you don’t get a good night’s rest almost every night, you could be seriously compromising your health.

In fact, sleep ranks up there with nutrition and exercise when it comes to staying healthy. It doesn’t matter how many hours you work out in the gym or how clean and nutritious your diet may be, without getting enough sleep, you can’t hope to achieve optimum health.

You may not be getting enough sleep for any number of reasons:

You might not be getting enough sleep because you work late into the night to meet deadlines at work. If this happens regularly, it's important to figure out how to organize your daily workflow so that you don’t have to bring it home with you.
You might not be getting enough sleep because you worry a great deal about how you’re going to pay your bills. Since worry doesn’t solve problems, you'll need to find a way to either increase your income or decrease your living expenses. Financial issues only tend to get worse over time; they must be resolved rather than tolerated.
You might not be getting enough sleep because of health problems like heartburn when you lie down, which makes it difficult to fall asleep even when you do go to bed at a decent hour. By investing in The Perfect Sleep Chair, you’ll be able to easily fall asleep while sitting up slightly. This can help create an environment where proper amounts of sleep are achieved despite ongoing irregularities with a person's sleep schedule.

One reason you may not be actively working to resolve your sleep problems is that you don’t think it’s a big deal to feel slightly sleep deprived the next day. After all, with enough coffee and activity during the day, the sluggish feeling fades away.

Here are 5 reasons why you must make feeling well-rested every day an important lifestyle choice:

1. Poor sleep can increase weight gain.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you increase your risk of weight gain and obesity-- because lack of sleep disrupts the appetite-regulating hormones ghrelin and leptin. Poor sleep causes ghrelin levels to rise and leptin levels to fall, which makes you feel constantly hungry.

2. Poor sleep puts you at risk for health problems.

Numerous health issues have been linked to people who get too little sleep.

Chronic sleep deprivation affects blood sugar metabolism and reduces insulin sensitivity.
Chronic sleep deprivation impacts the immune system and reduces the ability to fight the common cold.
Chronic sleep deprivation increases inflammation, which, in turn, can cause a wide range of digestive tract problems, like inflammatory bowel diseases.
Chronic sleep deprivation plays a major role in cardiac health, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

3. Poor sleep reduces your cognitive abilities.

People who regularly don’t get enough sleep suffer from a reduced ability to concentrate and be productive. The greater the level of sleep deprivation, the harder it is for an individual to solve problems or remember things. They also lose their ability to recognize social cues like other people’s anger, sadness, or happiness.

4. Poor sleep affects mood.

While we all accept someone’s grumpy mood with a humorous quip if they didn’t get enough sleep, chronic sleep deprivation can create high levels of depression and apathy.

5. Poor sleep reduces performance.

While insufficient sleep is most noticeable in athletic performance, it can also affect job performance. When someone is feeling depressed, can’t think clearly, or fails to respond to social cues, they can jeopardize their jobs as their work performance begins to deteriorate.

In conclusion, chronic sleep deprivation can ruin your health, wealth, and relationships. One common reason why people don’t address this issue is that the adverse effects of getting too little sleep are subtle. It takes time for the negative ramifications of ongoing sleep deprivation to become obvious.