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Diseases That Can Be Caused By A Lack Of This One Thing
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Are you a Type A personality? Do you just go, go, go all day, half the night, erroneously believing that you can “get by” just fine on five or six hours of sleep?
You might not think that skimping on a little sleep is all that important, but it is SO much more important than the housework, homework, or office work that you are trying to catch up on. Pulling a late nighter occasionally is probably okay, but constantly skimping on sleep greatly increasing your risk of certain diseases.
Lack of sleep can cause some pretty serious health problems as well. You might have already noticed some of the major warning signs that your body is seriously sleep deprived:
- Irritability
- Memory lapses
- Decreased creativity
- Lowered immune system
- Increased heart rate variability
- Increased reaction time
- Aches and pains
- Decreased levels of accuracy
- Tremors
- Symptoms of ADHD
- Cognitive impairment
You might not have made the connection between these symptoms and a lack of sleep but if you regularly get less than seven hours a night, you should.
Let’s take a look at the six diseases that often have their start in a lack of sleep.
1. Breast Cancer
Most people who have fought and won the fight against breast cancer know that this disease can reappear (and may have had its start) in a lack of sleep. Your body needs rest in order to repair cells and remove cells that are old or mutated. Insufficient sleep means these cells stay in your body and can mutate further, possibly leading to cancer.
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Photo credit: bigstock.com
2. Diabetes
Eating junk food and/or a high sugar diet can often cause you to stay awake at night. You might think that you have insomnia, but the truth is that your diet is to blame. Sometimes, people eat in order to stay awake. Eating high sugar meals, sugary energy drinks, or coffee with sugar in it to stay awake when you should be sleeping can lead to insulin resistance and, eventually, diabetes.
3. Incontinence
You might have to wake up once to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, but when you get up more than once, it is often difficult to fall back asleep, which can cut your night short. Stop drinking liquids at least two hours before bedtime to avoid incontinence becoming a problem not only during the night, but ebbing over into the daylight hours as well.
4. Stroke
Many people rely on caffeine, energy drinks, and other means of staying awake so that they can delay their bedtime, but these things often lead to higher blood pressure, which leads to heart disease and stroke.
5. Memory Loss
You already know that your brain just does not function the same when you don’t sleep enough, but did you know that these memory losses can become permanent? Stop memory loss from becoming a regular thing in your life by getting enough sleep every night.
6. Osteoporosis
Brittle, weak bones are caused by many things, but one of them is a lack of sleep. If you want to keep your bones strong and avoid fractures later in life, hit the hay early!
READ ALSO: 8 Common Diseases Caused from a Lack of Vitamin D
It’s true that staying out late to party, hitting up those midnight madness sales, and getting important work done for the next day can be fun or worthwhile, but when you see how your health suffers, you might want to rearrange your schedule so that you can get your zzz’s.
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