When was the last time you woke up truly rested and refreshed? To be honest, that’s feeling more and more like a luxury these days as people sleep less. Data shows that more than a third, 38% to be precise, of Americans aged 18 to 64 years regularly get under 7 hours of sleep. 

This perpetual lack of adequate sleep is worse than a lot of us realize. The fatigue, daytime sleepiness and irritability you feel the next day are just the obvious short term effects of sleep deprivation. Inside your body, chronic sleep deprivation is wreaking havoc on your health and even reducing your lifespan. 

In this post, we hope to convey just how bad poor sleep is. We go deep into the weeds of sleep science to explain the very serious effects of chronic sleep deprivation, some of which are life and death.

What is Chronic Sleep Deprivation?

Let’s start by explaining exactly what we mean by poor sleep. An occasional 5-hour snooze will have you feeling like garbage the next day, but you will recover quickly if you sleep well on subsequent nights. 

But if you are getting less than 7 hours of sleep night after night,  then that’s chronic sleep deprivation. Its effects are not just a permanent state of fatigue. It also increases your risk of major diseases, deteriorates your mental health and lowers your lifespan. 

5 Ways Lack of Sleep Ruins Your Health 

1. It Makes a Heart Attack or Stroke More Likely 

Lack of sleep is especially hard on your cardiovascular health. Chronic sleep deprivation significantly increases the risk of a heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. 

Sleep is so important for heart health that in 2022, the American Heart Association added sleep to their ‘Life’s Simple 7’ list of health measures to protect cardiovascular health. The new ‘Life’s Essential 8’ list recommends that adults get 7-9 hours of sleep.

Sleep deprivation harms the health of your heart in several ways. It causes or worsens hypertension (high blood pressure), which damages arteries and organs including the heart. 

Lack of sleep also increases inflammation, a major factor behind the development of heart disease. 

As we will discuss shortly, lack of sleep is also associated with weight gain and obesity. And as we already know, putting on the pounds is not exactly good for your heart. 

2. It Increases Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Researchers have found that sleep quality affects glucose metabolism. In one study, they found that getting between 4-5.5 hours of sleep lowers insulin sensitivity by 16-24%. 

So if you are constantly getting inadequate sleep, you stand the risk of developing insulin resistance, which eventually leads to type 2 diabetes. 

3. It’s Terrible for Your Mental Health

Just one night of poor sleep leaves you irritable, moody and more stressed than usual. Chronic sleep deprivation has worse effects on your mental health. 

It has been linked to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, bipolar disorder and other mental conditions. If you already suffer from one of these conditions or you are prone to them, not getting enough sleep will only make it worse.  

4. Poor Sleep is Linked to Obesity

Not getting enough sleep makes it easier for you to add weight and increases the risk of obesity. One of the ways that sleep is linked to weight gain is appetite. 

Sleep deprivation lowers the level of leptin, a hormone that suppresses appetite. At the same time, the hormone that makes you hungry (ghrelin) goes up. This increases your appetite, making you eat more. Not only that, it makes you crave unhealthy foods rich in sugar, salt and fat. 

With weight gain, comes many other health problems including higher risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and more. 

5. Lack of Sleep Increases Mortality Risk 

‘Mortality risk’ is just a nicer science-y way of saying that poor sleep increases your risk of death from any cause (also called all-cause mortality). 

When you look at all the health problems caused by lack of sleep such as heart attack, stroke and diabetes, you can easily see why it would increase mortality risk. 

This is not even including other deadly consequences of sleep deprivation such as driving while tired or sleepy. 

Good Sleep is a Basic Need

Make good sleep a priority in your life. Get a bedtime routine that helps you wind down, invest in high quality bedding like the Hercleon Jax Sheets, make your bedroom more sleep friendly and try to get 7-9 hours of sleep each night.