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Health Effects of Sleep Deprivation

| August 23, 2014 Comment

Health Effects of Sleep Deprivation – Depriving yourself of sleep can have some serious consequences for your health and for the health of those around you. Check out this video for details.

Expert: Mark Haltrecht, D.O. NSLIJ Plainview Hospital

Transcript

In the short term, sleep deprivation can lead to decreased performance and alertness during daily activities. Reducing sleep by just one and a half hours can lead to a 30 percent reduction in alertness. In fact, over 100,000 car crashes and 7,000 accident deaths each year are attributed to drowsy driving.

If you’re not getting enough sleep, your cognitive functioning, and your memory in particular, suffers a blow. This can make it difficult to think and process new information on the job or at school, and can double the risk that you will suffer an occupational injury.

Sleep loss can also lead to a host of serious physical maladies over the long-term, including an increased risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.

In addition, because the body repairs and strengthens its immune system during non-REM sleep, people who don’t sleep well are at an increased risk of catching a cold or the flu. There is some evidence that not sleeping well is a factor in obesity.

Last Modified: 2014-05-30

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Category: Health and Nutrition, Videos

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