4 Surprising Effects Lack of Sleep Has on Your Body

We live in a busy society where pulling all-nighters is considered a badge of honor. But what price are we really paying? Here are 4 side-effects caused by chronic lack of sleep.

1. Weight Gain: Studies have shown that getting less than 6 hours of sleep per night causes changes in your body’s metabolism and food cravings. After just 5 days of shortened sleep, people were found not only to consume more calories, an additional 330 calories on average, they also craved more calorie-dense, processed carbohydrates. Added up over time, that’s 77,000 ‘extra’ calories per year causing a 10-15 pound weight gain.

2. Poor Reproductive Health: Men who regularly get less than 6 hours of sleep per night have been shown to have lower testosterone levels and up to 29% lower sperm count. Women, on the other hand, when experiencing less sleep have shown decreased levels of FSH (a key hormone in contraception) and reported a higher incidence of irregular menstrual cycles.

3. Increased Risk of Alzheimer's Disease: During NREM sleep, certain brain cells (glial cells) shrink, allowing cerebral spinal fluid to flush toxins from the brain. When you get less sleep & less NREM sleep toxins, glial cells do not shrink thus causing a build up of toxins. One toxin in particular, amyloid protein, is of interest. This protein has been shown to cause plaques in the brain which are associated with Alzheimer's disease.

4. Increased Risk of Cancer: Studies have shown that chronic lack of sleep increases the risk of developing cancer by 40%. Chronic lack of sleep keeps your parasympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system in a continuous state of overdrive. This continuous state without recovery causes your immune system to respond with a chronic state of inflammation which promotes health problems that lead to cancer. Lack of sleep has also been shown in mice to increase the speed and size of cancer by 200%.

If none of the above have caused you to re-think your sleep patterns, consider this: people with just one bad night of sleep (less than 5 hours), when compared to well-rested pictures of themselves, have been found to look older, more fatigued, less healthy, and less attractive.

So, if lack of sleep has all of these (and even many more) adverse side-effects, why is it one of the first things we sacrifice in our busy lives?