A bad night’s sleep is pretty self-explanatory… it’s bad. And we’re sure you already know that. But did you know being tired messes up your brain and body in a whole host of ways? Here’s just a few ways being sleeping ruins your life to keep a look-out for:
15. Losing Your Sense of Humour
It takes a lot more brainpower to process a joke than you think. Sleep disturbances are correlated with a disinclination to make jokes, so a rough night might mean you’re suddenly one of those super-serious conspiracy theorists on Twitter.
14. Increased Sensitivity to Pain
Sleep deprivation can reduce your pain threshold by more than 15 percent!
13. Decreased Empathy
Lack of sleep turns you into an uncaring person.
When exposed to photos of people in emotional situations, sleep-deprived subjects displayed less empathy.
12. Decreased Ability to Read Emotions
Lack of sleep also impairs your ability to read sadness or happiness on other people’s faces, so you might have no idea you upset someone!
11. Thinking You’re Irresistible
Whether or not someone is into you is probably the most crucial of social cues to discern, so it’s potentially catastrophic that sleep-deprived men are more likely to (incorrectly) think someone wants to sleep with them.
10. Thinking Other People Are Irresistible
Sleep-deprived people also rate others as more attractive than they do when they’re well rested, so depending on your sleep situation, it could be years before you realise you didn’t actually marry 'the One'.
9. Ruining Your Love Life
A lack of sleep decimates testosterone levels, leading to a diminished libido, and even if you soldier on, you may not have the ability and/or focus to get the job done on a number of levels.
8. Getting Lost and Confused
Sleep-deprived subjects were slower and made way more mistakes when they tried to navigate virtual environments.
7. Getting (Dangerously) Happy
On the flip side of the crankiness normally associated with a lack of sleep is the possibility of sleep-deprivation-induced euphoria, a state of extreme giddiness, confidence, and optimism that basically mimics a manic episode.
It sounds fun, but people who experience mania will tell you it’s not, mainly due to the increased risk of dangerous or just plain embarrassing behaviour.
6. Taking All Your Money
Okay, a sleep demon isn’t literally going to show up and rob you, but sleep deprivation can cause you to make riskier gambling choices. It seems to cause an overall uptick in reward-seeking behaviour, and who could blame you, after the night you had?
5. Increased Risk of Depersonalisation
Sleep deprivation makes you more likely to experience the feeling of being outside your body or that you aren’t real and hallucinations. In fact, sleep-deprived brains eventually start to act like schizophrenic brains.
4. Making You Paranoid
A lack of sleep makes you paranoid, to the point of identifying friendly faces as threatening!
3. Getting the Munchies
A bad night’s sleep messes your hormones up, and low energy already drives you to eat fatty, carb-laden foods. Combined with poor impulse control and decision-making ability, sleep-deprived people end up buying more and fattier food the next day.
2. Making You Feel Stoned
If all this paranoia and junk food kind of sounds like a lack of sleep is making you high, well, it basically is. Sleep deprivation leads to an increase in endocannabinoids zooming around the brain.
1. You’ll Think You’re Fine
Despite all those awesome neurotransmitters going into overdrive, you may not actually feel like anything is wrong. Your sleep-deprived brain is to blame.
People whose reaction times reduce due to a lack of sleep tend to think they haven’t changed at all, which can be a disaster when they, say, get behind the wheel!
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