Insomnia: 10 Things That Happen to Your Body When You Don't Get Enough Sleep

Insomnia, here are the consequences that insomnia can have on our health.

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To wake up rested in the morning, most say, you need to sleep at least between 7 and 9 hours. A mirage for many, trifles for those who are a hibernating bear in all seasons. The fact is that insomnia is for some a real problem that, in the long run, can have serious consequences.

What is true is that no one should forget that sleep is physiologically essential for the well-being of the whole organism and that 4 or 5 hours are not enough to rest body and mind.

A University of California at Berkeley neuroscientist Matthew Walker has attempted to explain some of the surprisingly dramatic ways in which sleep deprivation can affect our bodies in full. For many - for the chronic insomniac, for parents of babies or for those who have to get up early to go to work - those 360 hours recommended practically do not exist. And this is how you abound with coffee, you have two bags under your eyes that I miss Louis Vuitton and you are irascible that Cruella Demon does not care.

But according to Walker, author of the book "Why We Sleep," among other things, the deleterious impact of insomnia goes far beyond feeling tired and grumpy during the day.

Here then are the consequences that insomnia can have on health:

1. A lack of sleep it prevents the brain from being able to create new memories. In the REM sleep phase, the brain is still hyperactive, so it is able to re-elaborate lived experiences, memorize the notions learned and activate various cognitive processes. Things that are less in case of insomnia

2. Too little sleep leads to a boost in the development of a toxic protein in the brain called beta amyloid, which is associated with Alzheimer's disease

3. Sleeping only five or six hours a night affects the reproductive system in men, leading to a ten year older testosterone level

4. Sleep deprivation has an impact on immune system and predicts the risk of developing numerous forms of cancer

5. A lack of sleep causes a real one chaos in the cardiovascular system. In fact, in people who suffer from insomnia, an essential slowing down of cardiac activity and the natural reduction in blood pressure are eliminated.

6. After a continuous activity of 19 or 20 hours, the mental capacity is so impaired to be almost as deficient as one caused by a drunkenness

7. If you don't sleep well or enough you can get to trough. Lack of sleep disrupts the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood. According to some studies, an altered sleep-wake balance causes nervousness, stress, tension and anticipates the onset of depression

8. Lack of sleep can also be synonymous with a decrease in the production of Tsh, the hormone that stimulates the activity of the thyroid, resulting in the onset ofhypothyroidism

9. Who sleeps badly or not at all has more likely to accumulate extra pounds. In the case of insomnia, in fact, the production of the hormone ghrelin increases, which signals hunger, while that of leptin, which indicates satiety, decreases.

10. Finally, with insomnia, it can also compromise the eye health. If, in fact, during sleep, muscle tone is reduced to allow the muscles to be efficient and regenerated, this is also the same for the eye muscles.

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