How Do Sleep Loss & Stress Effect Your Health?
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Today’s guest blog is brought to you by Phyllis Wilkerson. Phyllis is a freelance writer and editor in the health sector. Her experience as a neonatal nurse in her younger days gives her a great background.
High stress and lack of sleep can affect your body in many negative ways. In fact, people don’t know just how much a lack of sleep can impair your health. Sleep loss and stress have similar effects on one another. In fact, one often contributes to the other in a cycle that is sure to wear you out!
Try not to stress about stressing. There are ways to quickly have a stress-less life. One step in the right direction is educating yourself and your loved ones about the effects sleep loss and stress can have on the body. How are stress and sleep loss are putting your body at risk?
Keeping You Fit
High levels of stress often act as signals to your body that there is an environmental emergency, and that it needs to conserve as much fuel as possible. Lack of sleep sends the same signals. In other words, when you’re tired or stressed out, your body takes it as a sign to keep as many calories as possible from your food. If you’re both sleepy and stressed out, the effect can lead to some pretty quick weight gain. Especially if, like most of us, one way you deal with stress is with high-calorie “comfort foods”, junk foods, etc.
So get some sleep, relax and watch what you eat if you want to lose weight. Even if you don’t need to lose weight, this practice will help keep you from gaining it.
Remaining Healthy
Too much stress can cause inflammation inside your body, which makes it more difficult for your immune system to do its job. Lack of sleep gives your body less energy to fight infections because the body’s white blood cell count lowers.
Exercise is essential in keeping a healthy body, mind and soul. It actually helps reduce stress because when you stir up your endorphins, it’s easy to have a more positive outlook. Stress lessens and sleep happens simply by taking a walk after dinner, doing yoga three times a week or meditating for ten minutes a day. Exercise your body and your mind.
Driving Better
Driving sleepy can make you a menace to society–even if you never once doze off behind the wheel! As this sleep loss infographic from TermLifeInsurance.org shows, one out of every five auto accidents are caused by drowsy driving. That’s more than a million accidents at a cost of $60 billion in the U.S. alone. Under slept drivers endanger other drivers and their passengers.
Living a Healthy Life
You probably already know that stress can raise your risk of heart problems. But did you know that sleep loss can do the same? If you’ll study the infographic from in the link above, you’ll see that a lifetime of sleep loss will make you 50 percent more likely to have a heart attack. And even if you never have a heart attack, a healthy, well-rested heart is a lot more fun than a tired, stressed-out one.
Keeping a Strong Libido
Lack of sleep can actually hurt your sex life! Sleep loss can cause a disruption in the human endocrine system, which lowers a man’s testosterone level and then affect a couple’s sex life for the worse. Get some sleep, will ya?
Fighting For Your Freedom
As any good gym owner, life insurance agent or nutritionist will tell you, you don’t have to let the blahs get the better part of your health. You can fight stress and sleep loss with things like exercise, meditation and an improved diet. You’ll live longer, have more fun and look good while you do it!
