Sleep is considered one of the important factors for self repair. When you sleep all your body functions and cell work for recovery and smooth functioning of the body. Sleeping is an essential biological function which is quite often neglected especially at a young age because it does not cause any direct consequences. But the fact is that it comes to bite you in the later stage of the life when you are not aware of it. Therefore it is always better to give your body proper sleep of 7-8 hours to avoid sleep deprivation. Today we will know about different stages of sleep deprivation and its result on our health.
When do you get sleep deprived?
Sleep deprivation is not just a long term process but a regular condition which can happen to anyone. Sleep deprivation is lack of sleep that results to poor cognitive function and increased inflammation to the body. According to our expert Dr. Sumeet Nigam, not just short amount of sleep but this condition can become a prolonged effect which increases over time and harms your health adversely. It increases risk of inflammation, poor immunity and related function and affects your thinking ability and skills. There are 5 stages of sleep deprivation depending on the severity of the case. Let us know about each stage in detail.
Stages of Sleep Deprivation
To begin with, sleep deprivation is not universal for everyone. Depending on the time frame or period till you have missed your sleep, sleep deprivation may tend to get worse. Here is what happens in different stages.
Stage-1
After 24 hours of sleep deprivation
Sometimes because of function of due to any following reasons we tend to miss a day’s sleep. You may not notice much but it affects your body functions internally. The next day you might feel a little dizzy and grumpy. Also your cognitive ability declines for the day and you tend to feel tired often.
Missing one day’s sleep results to having 0.10 percent cognitive decline for next few days. This is almost same as having blood alcohol more than what is legally allowed to drive. If you get sleep deprivation for 24 hours, here is what happens to your body-
- Brain fog
- Irritability
- Anger
- Drowsiness
- Increased levels of stress
- Fatigue
- Tremors
- Lack of concentration’
- Food cravings
- Puffy eyes
- Dark circled eyes
Stage-2
After 36 hours of sleep deprivation
Missing out around 36 hours of sleep means having more serious and intense problems. If you try to miss out on your sleep for so long, then it does affect your body functions at a higher rate.
Having sleep deprivation for such continuous hours may cause you to have sleep for brief periods without you realising it. It is a usual process because your body is in dire need to sleep which it is deprived off for such a long time. This tiny sleep period are called micro sleep which usually lasts only for 30 seconds or so.
This condition or sleep deprivation occurs because your brain starts to have disruption in signals to other parts of the body. Because of this many of your body parts get severely impaired and lose their ability to perform cognitive functions properly. It results to symptoms such as-
- Impaired memory
- Not able to understand new information
- Behavioural changes
- Decision making abilities
- Increased appetite
- Increased number of error making
- Slow reaction time
- Increased inflammation
- Extreme fatigue
- Impaired immune system
Stage-3
Sleep deprivation for more than 48 hours
48 hours is a very long period for the body to continuously work without getting rest. It is same as lifting weights three times more heavily than your muscles can take. At such a long period of sleep deprivation, it becomes hard to remain awake.
A person also gets hallucination at times, or you may start feeling things which have not actually happened to you. This may cause depression and anxiety and results to several other problems such as-
- Higher levels of stress
- Extreme fatigue
- Immunity related problems
- Nausea
- Increased irritability
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Stage -4
Sleep deprivation for more than 72 hours
72 hours means around 3 days of sleep loss. It can kill your urge to indulge in any activity or work, and you may experience worse symptoms than usual. Micro sleeps might now increase along with its duration and it impairs your perceptions as well.
People who get sleep deprivation for more than 3 days tend to often get hallucination of every sort. This includes having illusions, hearing sounds and feeling different objects. Sleep deprivation that goes on for such a long time may results to these symptoms-
- Depersonalization
- Thinking disorders
- Delusions
- Illusions
Stage-5
Being awake for more than 96 hours
This is serious, and you might need to get a doctor’s appointment this time. Letting your body being sleep deprived for such a long period for 4 days is almost unbearable for your body. It may cause worse symptoms and health disasters. If you miss sleep for continuous 4 days, then you may also be prey of psychosis which is a mental health disorder.
This condition is so complicated that you may start interpreting reality which may take you to sleep deprivation psychosis. Typically a person does not reach this level, but if it does, it can have a long term affect on it brain function and cognitive ability. However psychosis may go away after some time when your body gets enough sleep.
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How long does it take to recover from Sleep Deprivation?
Well, according to different stages, the time of recovery also differs. Recovery time can be achieved by sleeping on time from next day onwards. This does not mean that you need to sleep extra to recover faster. But at most stages, the body recovers within a few days and health issues start declining. Later stages of sleep deprivation may take upto several weeks for recovery if there are more severe symptoms and health conditions involved. The formula is simple. The longer you remain awake, more time it will take for your recovery.
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