eli5: How does lack of sleep kill someone?
In: Biology
Your body does important things when it sleeps. If those things don’t get done, it thinks you’re sick, so it sends signals to you to tell you to sleep. Those signals impact your focus, memory, hormones, and even cause you to fall asleep at times when you need to be alert for your safety. It won’t directly kill you, but the conditions it causes can, either quickly–like dozing off while driving–or slowly–like by sending messages to your body to eat and rest, when in fact you don’t need to eat so you gain unhealthy weight quickly.
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I suffered for 5 to 7 years from secondary Hypersomnia due to undiagnosed Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Put simply, I didn’t get a good, complete night’s rest for half a decade or more. And it was the hypersomnia that finally got me to a doctor. After a sleep study, it was determined I’d “wake up” more than 25 times per hour due to my airways being blocked.
My sex drive was broken and I’d gained 40 pounds in three years due to hormone imbalances that impacted metabolism, I was forgetting important things, and I would feel drowsy and doze off when doing important tasks, including driving.
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