How lack of sleep affects your body: Part 2

How lack of sleep affects your body | Insomnia problems | Sleeplessness

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Your heart

Lack of sleep doubles the risk to your heart, according to recent research. A study in 2007 found that people who cut their sleep patterns from 7 down to 5 hours a night were twice as likely to die from heart disease.

Lack of sleep effectively makes the body panic and ups the number of stress hormones being released into the body. This increases blood pressure and is one of the biggest risk factors for heart attacks and strokes.

goodtoknow sleep tip: Don't look at the clock. If you wake up in the night, seeing the time naturally makes you more anxious and will make it more difficult to drift off again. Turn it away from you to stop you seeing it accidentally.

Your stomach

There has been research done that suggests that lack of sleep can influence obesity.

There are two hormones in your body that work opposite each other to control how hungry you feel. If the level of one hormone - called leptin - is low and the other - called ghrelin - is high, then signals are sent to your brain to say you are hungry. If the levels are reversed, then your brain thinks you are full.

Lack of sleep over a few nights has shown that the levels of these two hormones change enough to make you crave high-calorie foods.

goodtoknow sleep tip: Don't drink before bed. Although alcohol helps you go to sleep, it will also make sure you wake up throughout the night and your quality of sleep will be worse than normal.