The pace of life of modern people is getting faster and faster, and many of them have voluntarily sacrificed the precious time for the body to rest and sleep, making staying up late a normal life. However, the health hazards of going to bed late cannot be ignored. Staying up late not only affects every system in the body, but also negatively affects the brain.
Is it possible to go without sleep for days on end?
According to Wikipedia, the Guinness Book of World Records shows that humans can stay up to 264.4 hours without sleep. The record holder was a 17-year-old high school student in 1964: Randy Gardener, which is equivalent to 11 days and 25 minutes, which is quite amazing! What is even more puzzling is that Gardener only took 14 hours and 40 minutes of sleep afterwards, and woke up naturally at 8:40 in the evening, and then woke up naturally at 7:30 in the evening after sleeping for 10 and a half hours the next day. In the following 10 weeks, the changes in Gardener’s health values in various aspects of the body were regularly detected, but it was found that there was “no” too significant negative impact.
Is it true that there is no problem with the body after not sleeping for several days? However, there are clearly many cases of sudden death caused by indulging in video games and not sleeping in the social news. For example, in the 2012 European Cup football match, there was a 26-year-old fanatic fan who stayed up late watching the game without closing his eyes for 11 consecutive days. Unexpectedly, after the game, they would not wake up from sleep. They also did not sleep for 11 days. Why are the endings of the two so different?
The same sleep for 8 hours, the time to fall asleep is very different
Leaving aside the sleep disorders caused by mental and psychological conditions, ordinary people’s “voluntary staying up late” can be roughly divided into two types. The first type: “sleeping for 7-8 hours, but tends to go to bed and wake up late.”, No. The second type: “Habitually stay up late, and sleep less than 7 hours a day.” For the former, if you get enough sleep every day, the bed time is from 2:00 am to 10:00 am, not from 11:00 pm to the general recommendation 7 o’clock in the morning (I believe few people can do it), will it be bad for your health? In fact, many research reports have pointed out that the impact of going to bed late is not just sleep itself, but the comprehensive consequences of going to bed late and affecting eating habits and brain judgment.
People who go to bed late have more chances to consume late night snacks, and most of them even have the habit of smoking and drinking. The time of day should be followed, especially from 11:00 pm to 3:00 am when the gallbladder meridian and liver meridian are detoxified. The human body must enter a deep sleep stage to detoxify. Western medicine theory also proposes that this period is also the most vigorous stage of melatonin secretion. Melatonin mainly has sedative, hypnotic, analgesic, anticonvulsant, antidepressant and other effects to achieve the purpose of maintaining physiological functions.
“Light” is a key factor that affects our built-in biological clock mechanism. Therefore, instead of sticking to what time to go to bed and get up, it is better to follow the ancient rule: work at sunrise and rest at sunset is the most direct answer! Because the same 8 hours of sleep, different time periods, the health impact on the human body is completely different.
People’s daily work and rest should follow the time of day, especially from 11:00 pm to 3:00 am is the gallbladder meridian and liver meridian detoxification time, and the human body must enter a deep sleep stage to detoxify.
Staying up late and not getting enough sleep, prone to depression and obesity
The stress hormone in the human body: cortisol (cortisol), can help maintain blood pressure stability and moderately increase blood sugar levels. The body receives chronic stress, which helps to maintain our focus and maintain work efficiency. Once the pressure is felt, the brain will Will order the secretion of cortisol, so if you are in a chronic stress environment for a long time (such as staying up late and working overtime, going to bed late), the liver must work overtime to metabolize the nutrients in the body in order to secrete enough cortisol. However, the blood sugar level has increased, and these excess blood sugar will affect the operation of various functions in the human body. One of the obvious consequences is the sentence you are most familiar with: “Staying up late may make you fat!”
This can also explain why people are particularly prone to catch a cold when they are under great pressure, because the liver is the largest immune organ in the body. If you have to work around the clock at night, of course, you are more likely to be invaded by viruses.
As for why it is easy to feel depressed and sentimental when going to bed late? At present, the research results of scientists mostly believe that when people stay up late to sleep, in addition to keeping cortisol at a high level for a long time, there are two other hormones in our body that will also be affected: melatonin (melatonin), serotonin ( Serotonin).
Melatonin is transformed from serotonin by the pineal gland in the brain, and the two affect each other. When the human body receives natural light stimulation during the day, the serotonin concentration begins to rise, so people will feel energetic and sleepless; at night When the light stimulation weakens, serotonin will be converted into melatonin. Usually, melatonin will not start to be secreted until about 14 hours after the human body is exposed to sunlight, and sleepiness will start to occur after 2 hours. For example, if you wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning, will you naturally feel tired and sleepy at about 10 or 11 o’clock in the evening? At this time, melatonin in the body is reminding you that it is time to go to bed.
However, melatonin must be produced in a completely dark environment, so if you don’t sleep in the middle of the night, continue to turn on the lights, watch TV, and slide your mobile phone, exposing your body to strong light will undoubtedly hinder the production of melatonin. generation. The level of serotonin decreases, melatonin cannot be produced, and the secretion of hormones in the body is disordered. Depression, anxiety, and world-weary depression with doubled negative energy are prone to occur. In severe cases, it may even cause long-term emotional problems such as depression and anxiety.
Not only easy to get tired, but also 10 potential crises
Insufficient sleep and staying up late can make people lose energy during the day and yawn again and again. According to the information provided by the American health information website “Healthline”, the consequences of long-term sleep deprivation on the whole body are:
1. Memory loss / During sleep, the brain will help process our long-term and short-term memory. If this sleep time is lacking, memory will gradually deteriorate and lose.
2. Easy to be emotional/become impatient, easy to lose your temper, and cause anxiety and depression.
3. A weakened immune system/decreased ability to fight viruses will make it easier to catch a cold.
4. Increase the risk of diabetes / maintain a high level of cortisol when staying up late, inhibit insulin production, and keep blood sugar at a high point for a long time, which can easily affect blood sugar stability.
5. Loss of libido/sleep at night The regulation of many hormones in the body will be affected, and sex hormones are one of them.
6. Difficulty concentrating/slow thinking and reaction processing time, unable to judge things correctly.
7. Increased risk of accidents / Statistics from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine show that about 1/5 of car accidents are related to fatigue driving, and more than 80,000 people doze off while driving every day. In addition, professional fields that require extreme concentration, such as doctors, if Those who sleep less than 4 hours a day are twice as likely to make mistakes as doctors who sleep 7 hours.
8. Susceptibility to cardiovascular disease / According to a study published in the journal “Human Sleep and Cognition: Basic Research 185” in 2010, a 10-point follow-up monitoring was carried out for middle-aged people without cardiovascular disease , found that those who sleep less than 5 hours for a long time have a 45% increased risk of chronic cardiovascular diseases.
9. Weight gain/Long-term lack of sleep, the brain will slow down receiving satiety messages, which means that it is easy to overeat and cause weight to rise in a straight line.
10. Poor sense of balance/slower walking, easy tripping… These subtle changes may be indirectly related to lack of sleep.
The Concrete Benefit of Sleep: Detoxifying Your Brain
In addition, according to the research literature published in the “Science” journal, it is pointed out that the brain works most seriously during sleep, and the “Glymphatic” system in the brain will be responsible for a series of “detoxification tasks” during sleep. A liquid called cerebrospinal fluid is secreted from the ventricles of the brain, and is transported and run along the pores between the ventricles; then, the cerebrospinal fluid will flow into the brain tissue along the gap between the arteries on the surface of the brain, and pass through the cerebrospinal fluid and the cells in the brain The interstitial space is constantly exchanged, and the waste accumulated in the brain is transported to the space around the cerebral veins, and finally discharged out of the brain to complete a cleansing, which lasts about 8 hours.
That is to say, if you stay up late for a long time, the brain cannot carry out the work of removing waste, and the metabolites such as β-amyloid (beta amyloid) produced by the nerve cells in the brain will accumulate in the brain. It is generally believed that the main cause of “Alzheimer’s disease” is closely related to these amyloid deposits in the brain, so it should not be ignored.
How to quit the habit of staying up late?
Having said so much, the biggest question in your mind must be: “So what should I do?” After all, people who will be night owls always have various reasons to let themselves go to bed late, such as better energy at night, full use of brain power, I was more inspired at night. Blahblah made a lot of excuses. If you really want to have a healthy life of good quality, the following items are recommended for you to try!
1/ Go to bed 10 minutes earlier than the previous day
Adjust the sleep schedule step by step. If it was 1:40 yesterday, then go to bed at 1:30 today, and push the time forward bit by bit. There is no psychological pressure, and it becomes easier to adjust the schedule up.
2／Cultivate regular exercise habits
At 5 or 6 o’clock in the evening, or before dinner, you can do some aerobic exercise such as jogging.
3／Do not use 3C electronic products before going to bed
Swiping mobile phones and other electronic screens before going to bed will not only hurt the eyes with blue light, but also stimulate the brain and affect the quality of subsequent sleep.
4/ Turn off any light sources in the bedroom
If you are used to sleeping with the lights on in the bedroom, melatonin will not be secreted in the body, which will affect the regulation of the body’s biological clock.
