How much sleep does the average person need to function optimally, or even competently? Can some people really get by on, say, four hours of sleep a night or will chronic sleep deprivation ultimately catch up with everyone?
While most people do well with seven and a half to eight hours, there are individuals who need less. Women, especially, often need more sleep because of fluctuations in hormones, cortisol and melatonin during menstruation and pregnancy, and at the start of menopause. To figure out how much sleep you need, note how many hours you need in bed to wake up without grogginess or alarm. It is advised one gets most of the rest in a single stretch, and not in chunks. If you do lose time on any given night make up for it as soon as possible. Catch up by going to bed earlier, not sleeping in later. And make up the sleep over a number of successive days, not all at once.
Risks of Sleeplessness
Anyone who’s ever pulled an all-nighter to meet a deadline or study for a test knows the day-after results aren’t pretty: The body feels sluggish, the mind fogged or frenetic. Recent research shows that a chronic lack of sleep is far more damaging than previously assumed by many experts. Sleep deficits as small as an hour a night can increase the risk of a wide range of conditions. Why? Because when we don’t get enough sleep, our immune systems go into overdrive, which causes systemic inflammation and turns on dangerous genetic switches.
Everyone’s immune system is unique, so how sleep deprivation affects you might be different from how it affects another person. Here are just some of the ways chronic skimping on sleep can affect your health:
- Neuropsychiatric disorders, impaired alertness and cognition, and headaches
- Vision problems, including blurred vision, floppy eyelid syndrome, glaucoma, even temporary blindness
- High blood pressure
- Increased levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress
- Cancer
- Difficulty with sexual functioning
- Increased food cravings and hunger
- Insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes
- Hearing loss
- Muscle weakness and decreased athletic performance
- Heart disease
- Skin problems and rashes, including eczema
- Hair loss
- Disrupted metabolism, weight gain and obesity
Excerpts from https://refreshingnews99.blogspot.com/2013/03/surprising-health-hazards-from-lack-of