Being tired can affect your entire day. It can affect your performance at work, your mood at home, sex life, memory, and your health. There is a big price to pay for your lack of sleep. Here are 5 major issues surrounding sleepiness.
CAR ACCIDENTS
Sleep deprivation causes car accidents. It is so dangerous; in fact, it is often compared to drunk driving. Being drowsy affects reaction time and judgment. The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) cites that fatigue causes as many as 1,550 deaths and over 100,000 car crashes per year.
BRAIN FUNCTION REDUCED
You need sleep to function in your day-to-day life. When you have sleep apnea, you stop breathing up to 30 times per hour which starves your brain of oxygen. If you starve your brain of its required oxygen, you are reducing cognitive functions as your daytime attention, alertness, and problem solving skills are diminished. Additionally, sleepiness is directly related to memory loss.
HEALTH RISKS
WEIGHT GAIN
When you snooze, you lose. When you develop poor sleeping habits, your body has a tougher time losing weight. Lack of sleep is related to increased appetite and obesity. If you receive less than 6 hours of restful sleep per night you are 30% more likely to be overweight than those getting 7-9 hours of restful sleep. When you snooze you really do lose.
LACK OF SLEEP SPEEDS AGING
Puffy eyes, dark circles, wrinkles. Your face tells the story when you lose out on sleep. Less sleep means less of the human growth hormone is released leading to a reduction in muscle mass and weaker bones. Sleep serves as a regenerative function of the body. Sleepiness is aging US adults quicker than they would like. Not only will you look older, you will feel older.
You are putting yourself at risk whether you have mild sleep apnea or severe sleep apnea and are not wearing your CPAP mask nightly. Not knowing about the relationship between sleepiness and sleep apnea and not treating your obstructive sleep apnea (or OSA) is just as dangerous as those who are living their day-to-day lives without knowledge that they suffer from mild, moderate or severe sleep apnea.
Undiagnosed? Take this sleep apnea survey to see if you have the symptoms of sleep apnea.
Using CPAP? Learn more about our CPAP alternative.