When you don’t get a good night’s rest, everyone around you will normally notice the change. People become irritable, less focussed and lower on energy after just one bad night off sleep. If this effect is obvious after one night of restlessness, imagine how an ongoing lack of sleep affects your productivity and overall well being.

The initial symptoms of not getting enough sleep are quite clear, but there is also a lot that can be occurring that isn’t as obvious. Simply put, not getting the recommended 7-8 hours of rest is bad for your health. However, that is just an average, and how much sleep you need varies with age. Here we’ll look at some of the more serious impacts of sleep deprivation.

How Sleep Affects Productivity

Productivity is significantly impacted when you are tired. Here we look at how it is changed:

  1. Concentration is reduced – It becomes harder to focus and can be dangerous if handling machinery. Many campaigns have shown that driving while tired can be as dangerous as drink driving.
  2. Problem Solving – Tasks that would normally be easy, or at least workable, become quite challenging. The way your brain works is affected and finding solutions to problems is a lot more challenging.sleep lacking
  3. Clumsiness – While it might seem funny to be a bit clumsy after a night out when it is an ongoing side effect of sleep deprivation, it can interfere with your work and home lives. That’s without considering the possibilities of injury.
  4. Forgetfulness – From meetings to facts and figures, it becomes harder to remember what needs to be done and to recall the information we need to use. The way the brain stores and accesses memories is affected, both short term and long term memories become harder to recall or are forgotten completely.

Being slower, less focussed, and moody is certainly bad for your productivity. The workplace may notice this, but they won’t be able to see what is happening to your health. Recent studies show that sleep deprivation has major impacts on health, even increasing the chances of dying dramatically. How Sleep Affects your Well Being

Sleep doesn’t just impact productivity, but your overall well being. Not getting enough sleep is bad for your health, and can even be dangerous or fatal.

  1. Defenses Reduced – Not getting enough sleep has a strong impact on the functions of the body, particularly the immune system. If you have been lacking sleep for a while, you may find that you are getting sicker more often and not recovering as quickly as you would normally.
  2. Raised Blood Pressure – The lack of sleep strains the body and will often result in increased blood pressure. If this is a long term thing and not just because of a night out, increased blood pressure can lead to heart issues.
  3. Lower Sex Drive – If you are trying for children, then getting enough rest is vital. Low levels of sleep result in lower sex drive levels. Over time, this can also be damaging to relationships.
  4. Hunger – As sleep deprivation messes with the hormones of the body, it can cause you to still feel hungry when you are full, or to comfort eat more. This, in turn, can lead to putting on more weight and other related illnesses.
  5. Diabetes – Not getting enough rest increases your chances of developing diabetes.
  6. Aging – Simply put, you will look older faster if you don’t get enough rest.

If you want to stay looking young (or at least younger) and live longer. It is vital that you get the rest you need after a regular workout, which isn’t possible without getting good motivation gym quotes daily. So, to sum it up, without that rest, you will quickly see your overall health decline.