Signs of Sleep Deprivation

If you find yourself drowsy or sleepy during the day, you may not be getting the ideal sleep hours at night. This sleepiness may interfere with your daily life if you are exhausted. As noted earlier, this condition can cause accidents. As sleep is also crucial to thinking and learning, concentration, memory and problem solving may be impaired.

Mood disorders are also common with lack of sleep. Depression, anxiety, mental distress, and alcohol and drug use are common in folks who don’t sleep enough or have insomnia. An analysis of 19 published papers found that sleep deprivation had effects greater on mood and mental disorders than on cognitive or motor functions.

There is also an increase in obesity, which could lead to a risk of diabetes, snoring and sleep apnea. Other health symptoms of sleep deprivation are impaired glucose tolerance, cardiovascular disease and hypertension. And if you fall asleep at night within five minutes of your head hitting the pillow, that may be a sign that you are not getting enough sleep.

Causes of Sleep Loss

There are many causes of sleep deprivation, with four very common disorders. Insomnia is the inability to go to sleep or stay asleep throughout the night and strikes 30 to 50 percent of the general population at any one time. Ten percent suffer from long-term insomnia. The resulting daytime sleepiness may interfere with your daily work as you may have poor concentration and focusing skills. Insomnia also means falling asleep at inappropriate times such as in a history lecture class or a business meeting.

It is estimated that up to 45 percent of the population snores, and half of those cases are probably sleep apnea. Sleep apnea occurs when your airways temporarily close due to soft throat tissues collapsing in on themselves either because of the body’s position or for a physiological reason such as fatty tissues. The brain then wakes the body up to restart breathing. Chronic snoring increases the incidence of heart- and brain-related problems. About 20 million Americans suffer from some degree of apnea, and it is a primary risk for high blood pressure, faster heart rates and other markers of increased cardiovascular disease.