Do You Know the Consequences of Not Sleeping Enough?
Sometimes we make excuses for not getting enough sleep, whether it's because we're worried, because of a mood, or because of work, How does this affect your health and well-being?
The Woman Post | Maria Claudia Londoño
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A recent study published in Frontiers in Network Psychology shows that being awake after midnight, as well as having interrupted sleep, is more harmful than we think, according to Dr. Elizabeth B. Klerman, who is a Ph.D. in medicine and conducts research in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Additionally, she is a professor at Harvard Medical School, who participates in the scientific group that hypothesizes the Mind After Midnight hypothesis, which postulates that the changes associated with nocturnal wakefulness in attentional biases, affective regulation, reward processing, and Executive functioning sets the stage for dysregulated behaviors and psychiatric disorders.
Being awake after midnight or not sleeping the recommended seven hours minimum without interruptions, affects our decision-making, assertive and positive, since physiologically an adrenergic increase occurs in response to stress, weakening cortical or prefrontal activity and thus It increases impulsive and thoughtless decision-making. This is scientifically proven by the fact that there is an increase in cortisol during the day as a response to stress in our body when it is active and the secretion of melatonin by the pineal gland to induce sleep at nightfall, as regulation mechanisms of the circadian cycle of the human being.
Did you know that women need more sleep?
According to research from the University of Loughborough (United Kingdom), led by the doctor in neuroscience, Jim Horne, concluded that the additional time that women need to sleep is approximately 20 minutes, since our brain executes more complex activities during the day, and we need to get that energy back.
Other research from Duke University (United States) suggests that getting little rest has worse effects on women's health, affecting the cardiovascular system, risk of heart attack, and stress.
Additionally, this bad habit can lead to the consumption of substances, either to keep us awake or to relieve certain depressive feelings that occur by affecting the circadian cycle, which is the biological regulator that regulates the functions of our body, which response to the periods of light/darkness, wakefulness/sleep, for which the sleep cycle is one of the most important in the regulation of circadian rhythms that affect the release of hormones, eating behavior and body temperature. Simply put, being awake after midnight or disrupted sleep affects the normal functioning of our organs and the processes that occur in the body for our stable health and general well-being.
Today, the accelerated pace of life, the new forms of remote work, and remote work contracts present us with the temptation to work until late hours, reaching the point of acquiring terrible eating and sleeping habits, which in the long run will be reflected in psychological illnesses. and physical and even alter our behavior.
It is important to realize that this affects our metabolism, and therefore can cause diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and others. It's time to regulate your sleep periods!
