3 Ways Insufficient Sleep Destroys Your Physical Health (Even Worse Than a Poor Diet)
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
Most people don’t realize that lack of sleep (consistently less than 6 hours) is deadly for humans, but it is. In humans, death happens after 11 consecutive days without sleep. So, when the next smart person tells good health is all about food and exercise show them this paragraph along with the following points:
- Insufficient sleep promotes the growth of cancer cells.
- Insufficient sleep results in the permanent loss of regenerative potential in all tissues.
- Insufficient sleep increases the difficulty in losing fat mass.
Notably, it is the lack of nighttime sleep that degrades a person’s physical health due to the regenerative processes that occur specifically after sunset when one is asleep.
Insufficient sleep promotes the growth of cancer cells
Due to an impairment in the ability for cells to get rid of damaged versions of themselves and creating duplicates of perfect copies only.
This impairment leads to an increase in the amount of malformed or cancerous cells which causes a proliferation of tumors. Additionally, there is a deregulation of several tumor suppression systems. As a result, many of the most terrible cases cancer occur in populations where individuals are shift workers such as nurses, doctors, and the security forces.
We have even seen studies being published stating that persistent night shift work can cause cancer in humans (National Toxicology Program) as well as some stating that it presents a carcinogenic risk (International Agency for Research on Cancer).
Insufficient sleep results in the permanent loss of regenerative potential in all tissues
As the ability to catch up on sleep vanishes.
Here the body loses the ability to clear up damaged cells and regrow healthy ones as the signal, sleep, is impaired. This then starts a vicious cycle where the cells needed to run various sleep systems become impaired (senescent) which further contributes to a lack thereof. As a result, we see many cases of very successful individuals who publicly state their disregard for sleep succumbing to terrible degenerative conditions.
The most glaring example of this was Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister who suffered from dementia in her later years, and famously stated that she operated on four hours of sleep per night.
Insufficient sleep increases the difficulty in losing fat mass
Due to the impairment in the ability for the spinal fluid to cool.
As the spinal fluid cools it encourages the body to burn fat to regulate the core temperature. The action of burning reduces the number of adipocytes (fat cells) causing a reduction of mass in humans. This explains why many avid gym goers find it difficult to maintain their physique even though they have perfect diets and subject themselves to brutal workouts.
I have seen colleagues in this predicament and when asked about their sleep they respond by saying they are either insomniacs or they just don’t have enough time to get adequate sleep.
Whether you want to pay attention or not, adequate sleep consumes one-third of your daily life.
Nature is therefore telling us that how you sleep AT NIGHT has a bigger impact on what you decide to eat or your strength and conditioning program.
This story was previously published by me as an answer on Quora. Follow this link to see the post.
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