7 psychological signs that youre not getting enough sleep
We review some pernicious effects on your health of not sleeping well.
Unfortunately, psychological disorders associated with inadequate rest are very common.
And it's not surprising, since we live in a very different society from decades ago, where everything goes very fast and technology has burst into our homes.
Not getting enough sleep?
Bad habits, rushing around, hellish schedules and other variables can cause us to rest much less hours than would be necessary for our organism.
Sleeping too few hours damages our psychological health.
For this reason, it is very important to know how to detect some warning signs in our behavior or in our daily life that make us reflect on whether it is necessary to spend some more time to proper rest. In this article we propose seven of these signs that may warn you that you should devote more time to sleep.
1. You find it hard to make decisions
One of the most unmistakable signs of a bad rest is the difficulty in difficulty in making decisionsThis directly affects our ability to be effective in our jobs or in our studies. If you have noticed that it is more difficult for you to think clearly or make decisions, it is possible that your rest is not being completely complete. Spending more time at work during the night is usually not very advisable, since in the end our cognitive capacity and concentration suffer.
As is well known, getting the right amount of rest is very important when it comes to consolidating learning and taking care of our cognitive abilities, and lack of sleep is very important.and lack of sleep hinders this process. It leaves us in a state where we are less productive.
2. Memory fails you
Some people are extraordinary when it comes to storing memories and learning, while others are very forgetful. Everyone's memory is a very personal thing. However, if we begin to feel if we begin to feel that it is difficult to retrieve memories or learning, it is possible that something is wrong.. Perhaps we should sleep more hours.
According to what we have explained in the previous point, and although there is still a lack of literature on the REM sleep phase, multiple researches sustain that during this sleep cycle our brain processes the information captured during the day and helps to consolidate and store it properly, that is, it constitutes the packets of information that we call memories.
Consequently, if we do not get adequate rest or do not experience if we do not rest adequately or do not experience a REM phase in optimal conditions, this consolidation of memories can be affected.As a result, our brain will be unable to reorganize the information and the next day we will have the feeling that we do not remember well what we experienced the day before.
If this insufficient rest is maintained over time, the deterioration of the ability to retrieve information (memories) will be accentuated.
3. You feel irritable and depressed.
It has been reported an association between sleep deprivation and the possibility of suffering from depression. depression. In fact, it is quite common to notice that when we have not rested enough hours we are more prone to be more irritable, to have a worse mood, etcetera.
In fact, research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania showed that limiting the hours of rest to 4.5 hours a day for a period of one week caused stress, irritability, sadness and psychological exhaustion in the participants. These problems, however, are easily remedied by resuming normal sleep patterns.
4. Sexual appetite
It is true: lack of sexual desire is also linked to lack of rest.. If you are noticing that you are beginning to suffer from some kind of altered sexual behavior or a simple lack of sexual appetite, it would be advisable to consider whether you are getting adequate rest. Poor sleep affects many areas of your life. Several studies show that sleep-deprived men and women have a decreased sex drive, because they feel exhausted and drowsy, and their Blood Pressure rises.
In addition, men who suffer from sleep apnea (a breathing disorder that occurs during the night) also report below-average testosterone levels.
5. Increased appetite (eating more)
Another benefit that comes into play when we rest properly is the ability to prevent diabetes, since it optimizes our response to insulin and keeps us from suffering metabolic disorders. Eating well also helps us to sleep better. It is a complementary circle that we must take care of.
So, if you notice that your appetite increases inexplicably and you do not understand what the cause is, one of the possible reasons is that you are not having a healthy sleep rhythm. You will be able to deduce this relationship by pure logic: as we stay awake more hours, we are more physically active and therefore eat more.. People suffering from insomnia tend to eat more food than they should because of the associated anxiety, and this can lead to an increase in body mass.
6. You cannot manage stress properly
In accordance with the above points, if you we often feel stressed by lack of sleep, reducing our rest time can aggravate the situation.. In addition, the same reduction in rest tends to feed stress, so it is necessary to cut this spiral starting by resting more hours.
If we allow this situation to persist, the snowball gets bigger: we suffer more stress because we sleep too few hours and, at the same time, we sleep too few hours because of stress.
7. Difficulties in vision
Finally, there are problems with our most precious sense: our vision. vision. It is logical that lack of sleep will eventually affect this sense, since if our eyes are fatigued they cannot be properly cleaned and refreshed, the quality of vision is compromised..
It is something similar to when we spend hours and hours in front of a PC screen, Smartphone or similar. The effects of this are evident in difficulty concentrating and a foggy effect. haze in the visual field. This is often referred to as eyestrain.
(Updated at Apr 15 / 2024)