Sleep, new research reveals, is a master regulator of health. A sleep deficit or disruption can create wide-ranging havoc, compromising our immune system, causing inflammation, and damaging our genes. Losing just an hour of sleep a night increases risk of cancer, heart attack, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
Lack of sleep can also lead to memory loss, negatively affect people’s reflexes and decision-making skills, cause hearing loss and psychiatric disease, and impede sexual function.
And it’s not just people who suffer from sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep apnea who have to worry, says James Maas, PhD, a recently retired Cornell scientist and one of the world’s foremost sleep researchers. He says at least seven out of 10 Americans aren’t getting enough sleep and they’re at risk for serious health problems, as well.
“People devalue sleep and are completely unaware of what happens to them when they have a deficit,” Maas says. “As a society we are so habituated to low levels of sleep that most of us don’t know what it feels like to be fully alert and awake.”Read the full article: The Healing Power of Sleep
Often getting to bed well after midnight, 1AM, 2AM even 3AM and now-and-then 4AM I would have to be a prime candidate for sleep deprivation. Combine that with usually waking around 4 to water the horse and see my wife off when she drives my son to work. Then I’m usually up before 7:30 to get our daughter up and running for School. That adds up to a whole lot of missed sleep. Working into the late hours on Research and Assignments which add to the already high stress levels and it may not be such a surprise that my body has crashed.