Poor sleep and its effect on the blood vessels

Sleep is an integral part of everyone’s life. To be healthy, full of energy, and in good spirits, an average adult person needs 8 hours of the night rest. It is a commonly accepted norm, which is considered enough for the body to recover.

Try to count how many hours of sleep did you have last night? Five? Six? Or maybe an ideal eight? Was your sleep calm and deep? If yes, our congratulations, you are one of the few people who have enough of night rest. But what if your answer is “No”, what if you slept for only a couple of hours? How much harm have you done to your health?

How lack of sleep influences our blood vessels?

One of the first systems that feel the negative effects of the shortage of sleep is the vascular system. In fact, these are your blood vessels that suffer from your late-night work or entertainment. The thing is that the heart rhythm, which is slower during the sleep, gives a possibility to the blood vessels to recover the damage they might have received during the daytime.

However, if you stay up late, your heart rhythm doesn’t slow down. Hence, the blood vessels< being under pressure, can’t restore their normal condition. Gradually, they get harder and more difficult to expand thus making the blood pressure go up.

Another factor which affects the health of the blood vessels of people lacking sleep was revealed by the scientists of the University of Helsinki in 2016. According to the results of their studies, a shortage of sleep leads to changes in cholesterol metabolism. They found out that people who get not enough sleep for a durable period of time have lower good cholesterol levels than those who sleep well.

As a result, the levels of bad cholesterol in sleep-deprived-people is higher compared to their “sleeping” opponents. Naturally, they are more predisposed to atherosclerosis, which is one of the major causes of cardiovascular diseases.