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Sleep is often postponed to make time for all the things you were not able to do the day before. After long, hectic working hours, night time becomes the only time for leisure, for chatting, watching shows and making long pending calls. But before you realize it, you’re yearning for more: another episode, another hour of scrolling, another reason to stay.
Also read: A sleep expert with 20 years of experience explains why you may still be tired after 8 hours of sleep
This compromise will take a toll on your health. Sleep is one of the key pillars of good health. Cutting corners on this not only leaves you tired in the morning; It also affects major organs like your brain and heart. HT Lifestyle caught up with experts to understand how poor sleep affects health.
increased cognitive decline
Dr. Ritu Jha, Director and HOD of Neurology, Sarvodaya Hospital, Sector-8, Faridabad, revealed that poor sleep causes early cognitive decline.
“During deep sleep, the brain’s ‘functional waste disposal system’, the glymphatic system, becomes activated. The glymphatic system clears proteins that may be harmful, such as beta-amyloid, which may be a marker for risk of Alzheimer’s disease. When we have poor sleep or fragmented sleep, the brain is unable to complete its waste disposal function, which can impair future memory. May contribute to the problems in some way,” the neurologist shared. This highlights the brain’s silent housekeeping function, where it flushes out toxic proteins that, if allowed to accumulate, increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. This process gets disrupted when you lose sleep.
If you do not get enough sleep, memory is affected. The ability to process and retain information is reduced. “Without rest, overworked neurons cannot organize information effectively, and we lose access to previously learned knowledge, increasing the risk of memory loss and potentially accelerating cognitive decline with aging,” the neurologist said.
Concerns about cognitive decline are not limited to older adults. Poor sleep can lead to cognitive problems very early on. “This effect is not limited to older adults, but also applies to middle-aged individuals. Insufficient sleep in your 40s and 50s can sow the seeds of dementia decades later,” Dr. Jha said.
heart under pressure
Sleep also adversely affects your heart health. Sleep essentially gives your body time to recover. But when you don’t sleep, your body becomes stressed and puts pressure on your heart.
Dr. Praveen Kulkarni, Director, Intervention Cardiology, Nanavati Max Super Specialty Hospital, Mumbai, said that quality sleep plays a major role in maintaining cardiometabolic balance. Without sleep, the well-established relationship between the heart, hormones and metabolism is disrupted.
Dr. Kulkarni said, “Good sleep is essential to maintain cardiometabolic balance. It is important to ensure rest, repair and revitalization of the organs.” When you stop getting proper rest on a regular basis, your internal systems automatically get derailed. Over time, you suffer from chronic sleep loss, which alters hormones.
He said, “Chronic sleep loss leads to an increase in ghrelin (hunger hormone) and a decrease in leptin (satiety hormone), which ultimately contributes to weight gain/high BMI and high blood pressure. The stress hormone ‘cortisol’ is elevated in sleep-deprived individuals, leading to chronic inflammation, increased blood sugar and increased risk of plaque formation and hypertension.” Plaque build-up eventually causes heart attacks.
So this constant stress over a long period of time forces your heart to work much harder than it should. The body remains stressed due to lack of sleep. And since lack of sleep upsets hormonal balance, the cardiologist commented, “Imbalances in sympathetic tone contribute to higher heart rates, blood pressure, and arrhythmias.”
Dr. Kulkarni strongly recommends at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep for proper recovery and rest.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions you may have about a medical condition.
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