Why Is Sleep Important?
Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety.
The way you feel while you’re awake depends in part on what happens while you’re sleeping. During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health. In children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development.
The damage from sleep deficiency can occur in an instant (such as a car crash), or it can harm you over time. For example, ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others.
Healthy Brain Function and Emotional Well-Being
Sleep helps your brain work properly. While you’re sleeping, your brain is preparing for the next day. It’s forming new pathways to help you learn and remember information.
Studies show that a good night’s sleep improves learning. Whether you’re learning math, how to play the piano, how to perfect your golf swing, or how to drive a car, sleep helps enhance your learning and problem-solving skills. Sleep also helps you pay attention, make decisions, and be creative.
Studies also show that sleep deficiency alters activity in some parts of the brain. If you’re sleep deficient, you may have trouble making decisions, solving problems, controlling your emotions and behavior, and coping with change. Sleep deficiency also has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.
Children and teens who are sleep deficient may have problems getting along with others. They may feel angry and impulsive, have mood swings, feel sad or depressed, or lack motivation. They also may have problems paying attention, and they may get lower grades and feel stressed.
Physical Health
Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Sleep deficiency also increases the risk of obesity. For example, one study of teenagers showed that with each hour of sleep lost, the odds of becoming obese went up.
Sleep deficiency increases the risk of obesity in other age groups as well. Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). When you don’t get enough sleep, your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you’re well-rested.
Sleep also affects how your body reacts to insulin, the hormone that controls your blood glucose (sugar) level. Sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which may increase your risk for diabetes. Sleep also supports healthy growth and development. Deep sleep triggers the body to release the hormone that promotes normal growth in children and teens. This hormone also boosts muscle mass and helps repair cells and tissues in children, teens, and adults.
Sleep also plays a role in puberty and fertility. Your immune system relies on sleep to stay healthy. This system defends your body against foreign or harmful substances. Ongoing sleep deficiency can change the way in which your immune system responds. For example, if you’re sleep deficient, you may have trouble fighting common infections.
Daytime Performance and Safety
Getting enough quality sleep at the right times helps you function well throughout the day. People who are sleep deficient are less productive at work and school. They take longer to finish tasks, have a slower reaction time, and make more mistakes. After several nights of losing sleep—even a loss of just 1–2 hours per night—your ability to function suffers as if you haven’t slept at all for a day or two. Lack of sleep also may lead to microsleep. Microsleep refers to brief moments of sleep that occur when you’re normally awake. You can’t control microsleep, and you might not be aware of it. For example, have you ever driven somewhere and then not remembered part of the trip? If so, you may have experienced microsleep. Even if you’re not driving, microsleep can affect how you function. If you’re listening to a lecture, for example, you might miss some of the information or feel like you don’t understand the point. In reality, though, you may have slept through part of the lecture and not been aware of it.
Some people aren’t aware of the risks of sleep deficiency. In fact, they may not even realize that they’re sleep deficient. Even with limited or poor-quality sleep, they may still think that they can function well. For example, drowsy drivers may feel capable of driving. Yet, studies show that sleep deficiency harms your driving ability as much as, or more than, being drunk. It’s estimated that driver sleepiness is a factor in about 100,000 car accidents each year, resulting in about 1,500 deaths. Drivers aren’t the only ones affected by sleep deficiency. It can affect people in all lines of work, including health care workers, pilots, students, lawyers, mechanics, and assembly line workers. As a result, sleep deficiency is not only harmful on a personal level, but it also can cause large-scale damage. For example, sleep deficiency has played a role in human errors linked to tragic accidents, such as nuclear reactor meltdowns, grounding of large ships, and aviation accidents.
What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Narcolepsy?
The four major signs and symptoms of narcolepsy are extreme daytime sleepiness, cataplexy (muscle weakness) while awake, and hallucinations and sleep paralysis during sleep. If you have narcolepsy, you may have one or more of these symptoms. They can range from mild to severe. Less than one-third of people who have narcolepsy have all four symptoms.
Extreme Daytime Sleepiness
All people who have narcolepsy have extreme daytime sleepiness. This often is the most obvious symptom of the disorder. During the day, you may have few or many periods of sleepiness. Each period usually lasts 30 minutes or less. Strong emotions—such as anger, fear, laughter, or excitement—can trigger this sleepiness. People who have daytime sleepiness often complain of:
- Mental cloudiness or “fog”
- Memory problems or problems focusing
- Lack of energy or extreme exhaustion
- Depression
Some people who have narcolepsy have episodes in which they fall asleep suddenly. This is more likely to happen when they’re not active—for example, while reading, watching TV, or sitting in a meeting. However, sleep episodes also may occur in the middle of talking, eating, or another activity. Cataplexy also may occur at the same time.
Cataplexy
This condition causes loss of muscle tone while you’re awake. Muscle weakness affects part or all of your body. Cataplexy may make your head nod or make it hard for you to speak. Muscle weakness also may make your knees weak or cause you to drop things you’re holding. Some people lose all muscle control and fall. Strong emotions—such as anger, surprise, fear, or laughter—often trigger cataplexy. It usually lasts a few seconds or minutes. During this time, you’re usually awake. Cataplexy may occur weeks to years after you first start to have extreme daytime sleepiness.
Hallucinations
If you have narcolepsy, you may have vivid dreams while falling asleep, waking up, or dozing. These dreams can feel very real. You may feel like you can see, hear, smell, and taste things.
Sleep Paralysis
This condition prevents you from moving or speaking while falling asleep or waking up. However, you’re fully conscious (aware) during this time. Sleep paralysis usually lasts just a few seconds or minutes, but it can be scary.
Other Symptoms
Most people who have narcolepsy don’t sleep well at night. They may have trouble falling and staying asleep. Vivid, scary dreams may disturb sleep. Not sleeping well at night worsens daytime sleepiness. Rarely, people who fall asleep in the middle of an activity, such as eating, may continue that activity for a few seconds or minutes. This is called automatic behavior. During automatic behavior, you’re not aware of your actions, so you don’t do them well. For example, if you’re writing before falling asleep, you may scribble rather than form words. If you’re driving, you may get lost or have an accident. Most people who have this symptom don’t remember what happened while it was going on.
Children who have narcolepsy often have trouble studying, focusing, and remembering things. Also, they may seem hyperactive. Some children who have narcolepsy speed up their activities rather than slow them down. Children who have narcolepsy may have severe sleepiness. They may fall asleep while talking or eating, or during sporting events and social activities.
Source:
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sdd/why
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