How Sleep deprivation can affect your health.Sleep

Deprivation can be harmful to your health both physically and emotionally.It can have major impacts on your health and can directly affect relationships. The impacts on adolescence and sleep deprivation can be both devastating to the individual and their family. When you deprive yourself of the sleep needed this can result in harmful effects to your health.What is Sleep deprivation? It is a condition when you do not get the necessary amount of sleep to function properly. This can be severe or can cause a behavioral issue, sometimes we do not realize we are not getting enough sleep. Most people need about 7-8 hours of sleep to be well rested. We function every day in our busy lives and sometimes don’t even realize what we are doing to our bodies. This can lead to serious problems if it is not addressed.Sleep deprivation can be caused by staying up late to do homework assignments or working late hours. Stress causes people not to fall asleep easily, they stay up worrying about what they have to do the next day. Others may drink caffeinated drinks late at night and this causes them to stay up later then they wanted to. Another scenario is when someone thinks if they have a drink at night (nightcap) they will sleep better. People tend to have a late night meal that can cause them to stay up either because they are full or have consumed too many late night calories; this can make them experience a boost of energy preventing them from sleeping.When you do not get the proper amount of sleep you can become irritable, you demonstrate memory loss, and experience fatigue. This is something I have become familiar with when I changed my shift at work. As I worked the opening shift and needed to wake up at 3am for my hour commute to make it to work by 5am. I slowly noticed that it took me longer to get ready and I began to drag in the mornings and throughout the day. It became harder for me to focus and to wake up in the mornings. It felt as though I was constantly in a mental fog. This has affected my short term memory throughout the day at work and has started to impact me the way I interact with my colleagues. I have become very short and quickly angered; this is something that truly out of character for me, especially at work. This also carried over to my personal relationships with family. I noticed I became easily angered with my children when I come home after work and see that they have not started homework or picked up after themselves. One of my colleagues said that I looked tired at that point I realized I needed to get more sleep. I started paying attention to my sleep patterns I was getting 5-6 hours of sleep a day. Once I started doing some research I was able to see how these side effects were directly affecting me.Dr. Lawrence J Epstein stated in a 2005 Survey completed by the National Sleep Foundation that seven percent of Adults had at least one symptom of either waking up multiple times during the night or snoring. The study showed fifty four percent of adults experienced insomnia. An average of thirty to forty percent of the population suffered from insomnia, and ten percent have a chronic problem. This does not only affect the individual but can also affect the individuals spouse as well. When this happens the couple can become angered and short tempered with each other. The number of people diagnosed with a sleep disorder has increased in the past few years and will continue to rise in the future as more individuals become aware that they have a problem.Dr. Lawrence J Epstein the author of the newly released book “The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep” explains in his article how an unhealthy lifestyle can lead to over eating, weight gain, migraines, depression, irritability and memory problems. All of these are unhealthy to your body and physical being. Epson explains that these problems can also affect family