As I blog at 2:18 AM, I’m reminded of the excerpt on sleep deprivation that smacked me upside the head. The excerpt that directly inspired my New Year’s resolution of getting 7.5 hours of sleep a night (which I’ve actually been doing fairly well at until tonight). The article that sensibly compartmentalized my sleep options and called me to a higher understanding of how sleep deprivation has been deteriorating my mind and body.

Thank you to SELF Magazine for this fantastic piece from The Big Snooze:

Droopy eyelids and low energy are the least of your worries when you’re sleep-deprived. If you aren’t getting the seven to eight hours that’s ideal, you can seriously compromise your health.

More than 8 hours Sadly, you can have too much of a good thing. Regularly amassing more than eight hours a night disrupts blood sugar levels, which makes type 2 diabetes a concern, according to findings in the journal Diabetes Care. And sleeping more than nine hours is linked to an increased risk of dying due to any cause, say researchers at the University of California at San Diego and elsewhere, possibly because other health conditions that cause fatigue are a factor.

Fewer than 7 hours You’re three times more likely to catch a cold if you sleep fewer than seven hours per night than if you get eight, possibly because sleep helps regulate the body’s response to infection. Weight gain also becomes a worry: We produce more of the appetite-promoting hormone ghrelin and less of the satiety-producing hormone leptin when we’re low on sleep.

6 hours or fewer You may think you function fine on this little sleep, but snoozing six hours or fewer a night for a period of only two weeks will impair your memory, reaction time and general cognition in the same way that staying awake for up to 48 hours straight would, according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

5 hours or fewer Averaging five hours or fewer of sleep weakens your body’s ability to regulate blood sugar levels, which may double your risk for type 2 diabetes, according to Diabetes Care. And people who sleep five or fewer hours a night are 50 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure than are those who get more than six, possibly due to their elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which strain the heart, the journal Sleep reports.

Read The Big Snooze in full at SELF.com. And if you’re still up late too for no good reason, start imagining a thinner, healthier, smarter and more alert version of yourself and GO. TO. SLEEP. 

Photo courtesy of SELF.com