What happens to the body if you don’t sleep for more than a day: the doctor explains – November 21, 2023

Trying to fit as many activities and entertainment as possible into 24 hours inevitably leads to lack of sleep. Physician-therapist of the medical company “LabQuest” + “Q-Clinic” Olga Shashkova told me what serious illnesses and irreversible processes are triggered by constant sleep for 5 hours a day.

Consequences of lack of sleep

A couple of days of lack of sleep or a day without sleep due to pressing deadlines or for any other reason will not cause irreparable damage to your health. The body may not feel stress, but the person will be accompanied by drowsiness, swelling, lethargy and fatigue, decreased performance and productivity, deterioration of concentration and attention. But this is only the least of what lack of sleep can really do. It’s another matter when, in some cases, such a regime turns into a habit, and a person begins to devote five hours to sleep over the course of a week, a month, a year, and even longer. As a result, against the background of disruption of circadian rhythms, a cascade of negative reactions is launched in the body.

If you don’t pay attention to sleep, your metabolism will be disrupted. Added to this is impaired production of cortisol, melatonin and growth hormone, fat accumulation, high leptin levels and low basal levels of lipid oxidation in the blood.

All of the above can be summarized by the term “metabolic syndrome”, which in fact is manifested by overeating, obesity, the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic stress, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, menstrual irregularities, infertility and even cancer, in particular breast cancer .

How lack of sleep affects your health

Lack of sleep affects not only your physical, but also your psycho-emotional state. A high risk of stress, emotional instability, short temper, tearfulness, and inattention lead to decreased performance and directly affect the quality of life. Lack of sleep also significantly reduces libido and physical activity.

Many are sure that it is easy to avoid all the above problems – just get enough sleep on the weekend. However, the logic here is approximately the same as with food – it is impossible to eat enough for the whole week. In addition, like eating too much food at once, oversleeping is extremely harmful to health – it also disrupts circadian rhythms. Contrary to expectations, a large amount of sleep may not give you vigor, but rather give you a feeling of “being overwhelmed” during the day, leading to weakness and headaches.

Why coffee doesn’t help with sleep deprivation

The second common way to regain your energy is coffee and energy drinks. This does give a short-term effect for a couple of hours, but soon the effect of the drink subsides and the person returns to a sleepy state. In addition, caffeine has one unpleasant effect – this substance promotes the leaching of microelements such as sodium, calcium, magnesium and B vitamins.

How and how much sleep you need

In fact, there is only one truly working way – you need to put your schedule in order and go to bed at a strictly designated time so that the total sleep time is approximately 8 hours. This is not a strict indicator – some people need half an hour less, others more. Please note that this is an average for adults – children and infants take much longer.

In addition, an hour before bedtime, you need to stop using anything that has a screen: smartphones, computers, tablets and TV. Firstly, you can simply get carried away by watching content and forget to go to bed on time again. And secondly, screen radiation has a detrimental effect on the sleep hormone melatonin. It is better to replace the screen with a book – an electronic version that uses special screens is also suitable.