What are the symptoms of sleep deprivation?

Sleep deprivation has a range of potential symptoms that manifest after continuous, inadequate sleep. These vary between people and range between physical symptoms like headaches and nausea to mental symptoms like impaired memory or increased anxiety. Understanding sleep deprivation and its causes helps you to recognise the problem and take steps to address it. Getting enough quality sleep is essential for proper rest.

What determines good sleep?

Good sleep is made up of three main components. You need a solid balance of sleep duration, sleep quality, and healthy sleep patterns to consistently get a good night’s sleep.

Sleep Duration

Adequate sleep duration is the simplest factor you need to take into account. How much sleep you need will vary based on factors like lifestyle and age. However, the recommended range tends to be between seven and nine hours of sleep per night for most people.

Sleep Quality

Sleep quality is important to make sure you’re actually get rest throughout the duration of your sleep. Throughout a night of sleep, there are different phases such as REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement). REM sleep helps to repair and rest your brain whilst NREM sleep allows your body and tissue to heal. For adequate rest you need enough of both REM and NREM sleep throughout the night. This has the greatest replenishment effect on your energy reserves and ability to concentrate.

Sleep Patterns 

Sleep patterns are important because they can affect both sleep quality and duration. They refer to when people get their sleep. For example, someone may go to sleep late and wake up late in the morning. Or someone may have tried to sleep the whole night but been interrupted. Then they may try to make up for their tiredness by napping throughout the day. Sleep patterns are affected by personal predispositions, lifestyle factors and medical factors. Generally, one uninterrupted sleep throughout the night is considered the most healthy sleep pattern.

What causes lack of sleep?

Lack of sleep has a number of potential causes related to your lifestyle, emotional state or health. It is often a confluence of these factors that triggers sleep deprivation in an individual.

Lifestyle Factors

Many lifestyle factors are able to affect sleep in different ways. Consuming caffeine or alcohol in excess negatively affects sleep quality in individuals. Conversely, things like regular physical activity and creating a comfortable environment for sleep make a positive impact. A doctor or sleep specialist will be able to advise you on which habits to incorporate or avoid.

Emotional State

Your emotional state often affects how easily you can fall asleep. This could be influenced by events in your life, your personality traits, and mental health conditions you may have. If you are stressed or worried, falling asleep becomes much more difficult. This results in you feeling worse the next day and creates a vicious cycle that you can get stuck in.

Physical Health

There are many health issues that are able to have a negative effect on sleep. These include pain from an injury or ailment, or nausea. There are also specific medical sleep disorders such as sleep apnoea which make quality sleep harder to come by.

What are the effects of sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation has a wide variety of negative effects on both the body and brain. Not getting enough sleep means you’re not able to heal and recharge properly. This puts you at increased risk for a lot of negative health outcomes.

Sleep deprivation makes it harder for your muscles and tissue to heal. In addition to recovery, this makes it harder to add muscle mass. Sleep is also important for your immune response, so too little sleep makes it harder to get over sickness. Some of the negative physical effects of continued sleep deprivation include nausea, headaches and dizziness.

How does lack of sleep mess up your sleep cycle?

Disrupting your sleep cycle, even once, could lead to partial sleep deprivation and more significant sleep problems. Although you will not feel the effects immediately, sleep problems might cause chronic symptoms eventually. Also, it would still negatively affect your ability to hold attention and even reduce your capacity for cognitive tasks such as analysis, problem-solving, or basic reasoning.

To get the full benefits of sleep, you need to have a healthy and consistent sleep cycle. When this is interrupted, you have a deficit of sleep. If this continues, then the issues will only get worse. That’s why it’s so important to get back on track with your sleep after it has been interrupted or affected negatively.

Can you get a headache from lack of sleep?

Lack of sleep increases the risk of getting a headache or migraine. Insufficient sleep causes damage to the hypothalamus, a part of the brain related to sleep and arousal. When damaged, it may disrupt your brain’s day and night cycle.

The pineal gland is also suspected to cause headaches when someone is not getting adequate sleep. Melatonin, a hormone that helps people fall asleep, is produced by the pineal gland. Lack of sleep affects melatonin production, which has been linked to migraines and cluster headaches during sleep.

Can lack of sleep cause nausea?

Lack of sleep has the potential to cause nausea, due to its effect on your immune system. Many of the cells in your immune system produce proinflammatory proteins when exposed to sleep deprivation. These cause organs, including those in your digestive system, to experience inflammation and, subsequently, make you feel nausea. Nausea, in turn, may cause vomiting and prevent you from eating or drinking.

Can lack of sleep cause dizziness?

Lack of sleep has the potential to cause dizziness, due to its effect on the brain. Balance and spatial perception are both negatively affected by not getting enough sleep. When someone is sleep deprived, they may experience dizzy spells or feel as though they are less coordinated. Dizziness has the potential to make a range of daily tasks very difficult and may even require someone to take time off work.

Does lack of sleep cause hair loss?

Lack of sleep does not directly cause hair loss. However, sleep deprivation contributes to higher stress levels. Stress has been linked to a range of negative health outcomes, including hair loss. So indirectly, sleep insufficiency may be a factor in triggering hair loss in some individuals.

How does lack of sleep affect cognitive function and concentration?

Lack of sleep makes it harder to concentrate and engage in many cognitive functions. Studies have shown that tasks requiring active attention and problem solving are negatively affected by sleep deprivation. Part of the reason for this is that sleep helps to repair and maintain your brain’s healthy cycle. Under sleeping interrupts your body’s cycle and causes your brain to go into “overdrive mode”.

Memory

Lack of sleep has an adverse effect on the hippocampus, the memory centre of the brain. It causes you to have more trouble retaining information. If you pull an all-nighter to try and study for an exam, you may forget a lot of information the next day since your ability to recall is impaired.

Impulse control

Sustained sleep deprivation has a negative effect on impulse control. This may manifest as lack of control when it comes to eating. As a result, many people who are not getting sleep may experience health consequences such as weight gain, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, lowered immune function,

These negative effects on diet may also lower your energy levels. Consuming a lot of high-sugar, high-carb food tends to make you sluggish and make you feel like napping. This, in turn, adversely impacts your sleep cycle.

Hand eye coordination

Lack of sleep causes people to suffer impairment to their hand-eye coordination. Many tests, including driving simulators have demonstrated this. In fact, sleep deprivation has the potential to leave your body in a worse state than when influenced by alcohol or psychoactive drugs.

Concentration

Frequent and chronic sleep deprivation fatigue you, disrupting the genes that govern your circadian rhythm. This may result in you having difficulty concentrating and struggling to perform specific tasks effectively. Sleep deprivation is often a factor in diminished school performance or low productivity at work.

How does lack of sleep affect mental health?

Lack of sleep has a range of negative effects on mental health. This is because it affects the brain’s ability to heal and function at full capacity. The body has certain physiological responses to sleep deprivation. These are able to affect mood and cognitive function, which subsequently have an adverse impact on mental health. Many mental health problems are related to insufficient sleep.

Can sleep deprivation cause anxiety or panic attacks?

Sleep deprivation can increase the risk of anxiety or panic attacks. This is partly because it increases cortisol levels, making you feel more stressed. It also affects emotional regulation and impulse control, making you more vulnerable to negative emotions.

Can you die from lack of sleep?

Eventually, it is possible to die due to lack of sleep. If your brain goes for too long without a chance to recover, it will begin to fail, which could be fatal. The longest time someone has gone without sleeping is 11 days. However with only one full night without sleep, you may begin to see negative effects manifesting in people.

What types of sleep disorders are there?

There are a range of different sleep disorders, all with their own characteristics. When you get diagnosed for a sleep disorder, that helps you know which steps to take for treatment. Broadly, sleep disorders are grouped under insomnia, sleep apnoea, and fatigue.

Insomnia

Insomnia is a category of disorders that make it hard for people to fall asleep. Insomnia sufferers often spend hours awake in bed before they manage to get to sleep. In more extreme cases, they may miss sleep for entire nights. Bad insomnia leads to chronic sleep deprivation and should definitely be addressed by seeing your GP or a sleep specialist.

Sleep apnoea

Sleep apnoea refers to a disorder when your breathing is impaired during sleep. This often leads to snoring and interrupts sleep. The constant interruptions have a big impact on sleep quality and make it hard to get enough REM and NREM sleep to heal your brain and body.

Fatigue

Fatigue disorders affect the actual recharging effect that sleep has. Individuals with fatigue disorders often sleep enough time but still wake up feeling tired. There are a range of biological causes for these disorders, warranting a consultation with a specialist.

Treatments for sleep deprivation

There are a range of ways to treat sleep deprivation and improve sleep. These include medications, lifestyle changes, sleep hygiene, sleep studies, and more involved forms of therapy. The ideal treatment plan will depend on your circumstances and preferences.

Lifestyle changes

Often, you are able to improve your sleep by implementing certain changes to your lifestyle. These may include a healthy diet, regular exercise, and a consistent sleep schedule. This is typically necessary if you’re dealing with long-term sleep deprivation.

Sleep hygiene

Sleep hygiene refers to habits specifically designed to improve your sleep. Some common recommendations are having a consistent bedtime routine, avoiding blue light from phone screens before bed, and avoiding caffeine late in the day.

Medications

In certain cases, when a doctor determines that you have acute sleep deprivation, you may be prescribed medications to help you sleep. These medications will generally be taken in the evening before going to bed.

Sleep studies

If you are having trouble identifying the cause of your sleep problems, it may be a good idea to do a sleep study. These can be done at a facility or sometimes at your own home. They involve monitoring your sleep over multiple nights to find out what the cause of your sleep problems is. This helps you take a more informed approach to your treatment.

Sleep therapy

If you have chronic sleep deprivation, you might benefit from specialised therapy for sleep. The most common form of therapy for sleep is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). CBT generally works under the principle that changing your beliefs helps to change your behaviour. This type of therapy has the goal of helping you eliminate or at least control your negative thoughts associated with sleep. CBT then aims to translate this into building good sleep habits and avoiding behaviours that prevent sleep.

Getting help for sleep deprivation

If you start experiencing sleep deprivation, it’s important to address it with your medical professional. While it’s tempting to self-diagnose or figure out your symptoms by looking online, you should always get sleep deprivation diagnosed by your GP. This is especially true before you take any sleep medicine or begin any treatment.

Should you feel extreme discomfort, or chronic pains due to poor quality sleep, contact your GP immediately. Once you experience symptoms such as fatigue or dizziness, you should get a medical certificate and take ample rest. These symptoms are your body’s way of telling you that a break is necessary, and overexertion might worsen your conditions. Getting a medical certificate is easy, and you can do it online. Go to Click Clinic, fill in your details, and submit your request, and the certificate will be sent to you by email without you needing to go to a clinic or add extra stress.