"I wish I could get less sleep," said no one, ever. But despite our love for being cozy under the covers, sleep deprivation is an epidemic among Americans—in fact, a 2014 Gallup poll found that a whopping 42% of U.S. citizens get less than seven hours of sleep each night. So what does too little shut-eye do to you (other than causing awful dark circles and mood swings)? Here, three weird things that clocking in less than 7 hours of sleep can do to your body.
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| What will happen to you when you stay up too late |
1. You just getting pump up
As the number of hours you spend in bed goes down, the number on the scale may go up—at least according to research from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. The findings, presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, suggest that pushing your bedtime back as little as 30 minutes each night could result in weight gain and insulin resistance. The study recruited 522 participants and asked them to complete 7-day sleep diaries. People who spent less time counting sheep were 72% more likely to be obese compared to their slumbering counterparts.
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| Your weight will gaining by itself |
"Sleep loss is associated with changes in appetite and metabolic hormones that predispose people to obesity and insulin resistance," says Shahrad Taheri, MD, lead study author and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell. (Hence why you tend to hover near the vending machine at work after a particularly sleepless night.) Sleep apnea—characterized by disordered breathing during sleep—can also trigger insulin resistance by lowering oxygen levels during sleep, suggests Taheri.
2. Your sex drive will hit a roadblock
You're only supposed to use your bed for sleep and sex, but if you aren't getting enough shut-eye, you probably won't be getting it on much, either. A new study published in March's Journal of Sexual Medicine found that, among women, longer sleep duration was related to a greater desire to have sex the following day—just one extra hour of sleep accounted for a 14% increase in the likeliness of having sex the following day. But it doesn't stop there; women who spent more time under the covers also reported better genital arousal and ability to achieve orgasm than those who didn't. The reasoning goes beyond sleep-related fatigue or mood swings, according to David Kalmbach, PhD, lead study author and researcher at the University of Michigan Sleep and Circadian Research Laboratory. Researchers believe hormonal changes due to sleep loss translate to poorer sexual functioning.
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| It affects your sexual life |
3. Your pressure is rising
No, we aren't talking about mood swings—we mean your blood pressure actually rises, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic found that people exposed to prolonged periods of shortened sleep have significant increases in blood pressure during nighttime hours. For the study, participants were instructed to get either insufficient sleep (four hours each night) or normal sleep (nine hours each night), all while being monitored for changes in blood pressure over the course of 16 days and nights. Those in the restricted sleep category averaged a blood pressure of 115/64, while those who got adequate shut-eye averaged a blood pressure of 105/57 at night. Though one night of missed sleep may not automatically raise your blood pressure, a daily habit of missing your Zzz’s for as few as 9 days could.
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| Pressure just went sky high |
A rise in blood pressure at night is particularly concerning, according to Naima Covassin, PhD, a cardiovascular diseases research fellow at the Mayo Clinic. "Nocturnal blood pressure values are a much better marker of cardiovascular risk than diurnal values," says Covassin, because high blood pressure at night can indicate that the heart is working harder than it should during its resting period.
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