If you are one of those people who find it difficult to sleep at night or who works late at night, you might be sleep deprived. Even if you are not sure whether you are one of them or not by the end of this article you will know how to find it out.

(Spoiler Alert: No, I will not ask you to visit a doctor or buy some expensive health wearable)

But before starting with all the science stuff let me tell you that just like your workout and diet, your sleep is also an important factor in maintaining your physical and mental health, losing weight and building muscle mass.

Why do you need to sleep?

To Keep Your Brain Working

Research shows that good sleep helps to improve learning, increase creativity, and aids decision making. Inadequate sleep may affect your problem-solving ability, reduce control over emotions. Lack of sleep can also result in depression, suicide, and risk-taking behaviour.

To Clean Up Your Brain

Throughout the day you see and process a lot of information, now you can’t store all of that (I mean you can but why would you want to? ). So, while you are sleeping your brain consolidates all that information and selects the important ones. Additionally, it starts clearing out the toxins in your brain which accumulate during normal activities throughout the day ( don’t get surprised you are not the only one with a dirty mind, everyone has those toxins).

If you don't sleep properly and don't get your brain cleaned you might end up with Alzheimer's. One of the toxins called Beta-amyloid is associated with Alzheimer’s.

Not Just Your Brain Your Body Needs Sleep Too

Sleeping helps to repair and heal cells. It also helps to maintain hormonal balance in the body, such as ghrelin and leptin, which regulate feelings of hunger and satiety. So, if you are not getting enough sleep you might end up feeling hungry even after a meal and as a result getting obese. Level of other hormones such as insulin, can also change and result in an increase in blood sugar level. For this reason, Prolonged sleep deficiency can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease. Deep sleep also boosts muscle mass and repair cells and tissues in the body(You must have noticed when your body is sore, sleeping makes you feel better).

To Boost Immunity

Immunity depends on the quantity and quality of sleep. Finally, sleep also affects productivity during the day. People who lack adequate sleep, often take longer to finish tasks and are more likely to make mistakes.

Also Read: Skinny Fat: Is Getting Skinny Same As Getting Healthy?

Are You Sleep Deprived?

The normal sleep requirement for different individuals is different, depending on age, physical health, mental exertion, and physical activity.

Sleep deprivation is not only associated with the quantity of sleep but also with the quality and timing of sleep. It is just the beginning of other sleep disorders.

The normal sleep requirement of children and adolescents is approximately 9-10 hours, for adults, it is slightly less than 8 hours and keeps on decreasing with age.

How To Find If You Are Sleep Deprived?

Some signs of sleep deprivation are falling asleep quickly, dozing off without meaning to, taking frequent naps, sleeping for very long hours during the weekend. Most of us are unaware of these facts. However, sleep deprivation is a serious issue which affects one out of three people.

The Spoon Test

This test was created by the late Dr. Nathaniel Kleitman from the University of Chicago, who is famously known as the “father of sleep research.”

This test must be carried out during the day. Switch off the lights and darken the room and then lie down at the edge of your bed. Keep a metal tray on the floor and hold a metal spoon over it. Note the time and close your eyes and try to sleep.

When you fall asleep, your hand will loosen its grip over the spoon and it will fall down onto the tray, waking you up. Look at the watch and note the time.

If you fell asleep within 5 min, you are most likely severely sleep deprived; if it took you 10 min to fall asleep, then you need more sleep than you are getting now; however, if you were awake for 15 min or more before falling asleep, you are getting adequate good sleep regularly.

However, there is one shortcoming to this test that the spoon might miss the tray but there is a very simple solution for that as well. According to Dr. Michael Mosley, a physician, as well as a journalist for BBC, set an alarm for 15 min so that you can note whether you slept before 15 min. If you are still awake when the alarm rings, you are in the safe zone.

Also Read: Why Is It Difficult For Women To Lose Weight?

Circadian Rhythm

Many people work in shifts late at night and nowadays work from home culture is becoming highly popular, it doesn't matter which time zone you are leaving in, but this leads to a number of sleep disorders. In most cases, these people have enough time to sleep during the day but since circadian rhythm does not allow it they find it difficult to sleep during the day.

Most of you must have heard of the biological clock, circadian rhythm is not exactly the biological clock but is closely related to it as biological clock controls it. It is an internal body clock which controls our sleep and wake cycle. It has a 24-hour repeating rhythm and depends on light and darkness. The circadian rhythm dips and rises causing periods of sleepiness and wakefulness.

The rhythm peaks between 2 am and 4 am and rises again between 1 pm and 3 pm in the afternoon making you feel sleepy. So, it's not just a boring lecture or a dull presentation that is making you sleep in the office. If you had adequate sleep last night the urge to sleep will not be that strong, however people who are sleep deprived have a high urge to sleep in the afternoon.

Circadian rhythm is controlled by SCN( Suprachiasmatic nucleus) cells in the body which respond to light and darkness. The optic nerve from eyes sends signals to SCN informing them about light and darkness.SCN further controls various hormones depending on the signal it receives. For example, When it is dark, a hormone called melatonin is released which prepares the body to sleep and when there is light in the morning, cortisol is released preparing the body to wake up.

If you are a teenager, it is likely that you sleep late because in teenagers melatonin levels rise later in the night. However, if you work in shifts during the night or working as an airline crew, an air hostess or frequently travel internationally, your normal circadian rhythm is disturbed.

Sleep Disorders Due To Disturbed Circadian Rhythm

Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder: when your body clock is two or more hours later than what is normal. You fall asleep after 1 a.m. in the night and wake up late in the morning or afternoon.

Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder: When your body clock is two or more hours earlier than normal. You feel sleepy early in the evening and wake up early in the morning or in the night. It is less common than delayed sleep phase disorder and there are generally no negative symptoms if you adjust your daily activities.

Free-running type: When you sleep later each consecutive day, as your circadian rhythm is longer than 24 hours.

Irregular Sleep-Wake Disorder: When you sleep frequently at least three times in 24 hours. This is mostly seen in old age.

What to do If You Suffer From Circadian Rhythm Disorder?

If you suffer from a disturbed internal clock try and bring your natural sleep-wake patterns closer to your lifestyle or working schedule.

You can opt for bright light and dark therapy, during your working hours if it is night or natural light is not available switch on bright lights( not too bright just bright enough so that they don't harm your eyes) and during your sleeping hours try and maintain as much darkness as possible in the room.

How To Catch Up On Lost Sleep?

Losing sleep on weekends and then sleeping late on weekends does not compensate the sleep lost. The effects of lost sleep remain for a long time.

In order to catch up on the sleep lost keep tracking how much sleep you are losing each day and then keep adding that to the next day. For example, if you are sleeping 6 hours every weekday and ideally you need to sleep 8 hours a day by the end of 5 you have lost 10 hours of sleep. Now you need to compensate for these 10 hours on your weekends plus the 8-hour normal sleep that you need on those days.

It might not be possible to compensate for the entire 10 hours in 2 days, just add the remaining amount to your next week. This might take some time but eventually, you will catch up.

If the number hours to catch up become too high go for a vacation and avoid using an alarm clock.

Sources

https://www.news-medical.net/medical-a-z.aspx?l=s

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/sleep-deprivation-and-deficiency