Causes and Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Causes and Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Introduction

Healthy individuals regularly sleep a few hours every day. Usually they sleep during the night hours. They find it very difficult to stay awake during the hours between midnight and early morning, when under normal circumstances they are sleeping. If the individual continues to be awake during this time, either partially or completely, it brings a state of forced loss of sleep, or sleep deprivation, that is, a condition which is usually perceived as fatigue (Brodsky et al., 2011). Need for sleep with a vibrating degree of drowsiness, will be felt for as long as a person does not sleep a sufficiently. This paper aims to discuss the causes and effects of less sleep or sleep deprivation.

Discussion

Causes of Sleep Deprivation

There are different causes of sleep deprivation but fatigue and tiredness are usually a direct result of lifestyle choices. For example, caffeine or alcohol before bed is one of the most common causes of sleep deprivation. Similarly, work schedules that keep you up late or even during the night, although unavoidable in some cases, they may change their circadian rhythms. In addition, the role of medication cannot be avoided in getting less sleep (Brodsky et al., 2011). Medications can interfere with the natural rhythms of the body and thus cause restlessness, insomnia and fatigue. Unfortunately, many choose to use sleeping pills in order to rest. If taken in the long term, these pills become less effective and interfere with the normal cycles of rest of the body (Fulke, 2009).

Consequences of Sleep Deprivation

During and after a night without sleep, it seems that the physiological circadian rhythms of the human body are the same. For example, the curve of body temperature during the first days of employees working the night shift tends to ...