I have only recently woken up to the obvious: sleep is critical.

Shelter? Yup, we need that too. Depending on environmental conditions, a lack of shelter can put our health and safety seriously at risk within a matter of hours. Food and water, similarly, check. If these don’t get topped up, then it’s only a matter of days before we are heading down a slippery slope towards critical.

But what about sleep?

It’s just as critical as each of the aforementioned, but the underlying attitude I am most familiar with, is that sleep can be ignored. Sleep can be put off now and done later. For a long time my attitude towards sleep was captured in a huge dramatic sigh, and a very teenage, “do I haaaaaave to????” Sleep is so annoying. It takes up time when I could be living. And if I miss out on some sleep, so what? It doesn’t matter, I can always catch it up later, right?

Well, yes and no.

We all have nights where we don’t get enough sleep, and we all have varying levels of control over whether we get enough sleep or not. Sometimes we have big nights where we miss out on a lot of sleep – by our own choice or not. In these moments we experience “sleep debt,” which we try to “catch up” by getting a few good night’s sleep in, and feeling energised again in the short term (and forgetting how terrible it felt at the time).

I remember when I was younger, after a really late night out, I would wake up and feel yuck. I didn’t drink a lot, but I presumed it was the alcohol that made me feel awful. Not sick so much, just a feeling of not being in my head or my body the next day. When I stopped drinking alcohol, I worked out I still felt the same “hangover” the next morning when I had a really late night.

I was clocking up some good old-fashioned sleep debt. It didn’t feel good.

So, if collecting sleep debt turns into our normal, then what kind of short and long-term health risks are we inviting into our lives?

Sleep Foundation talks about how becoming sleep deprived “increases the risk of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke”.

Research has identified that maintaining brain health is one of the important functions of sleep. Therefore, if we go for long periods without quality sleep, it affects the brain’s ability to focus, remember and comprehend information. And I don’t know about you, but I really rate my brain’s ability to function. I’m a fan. Pro-brain all the way.

Harvard Health Online outlines some research that questions whether sleep-debt can be repaid, and that playing catch-up with sleep debt may be an unhelpful story we are telling ourselves (2019). In other words, a lack of sleep during the week doesn’t necessarily get cancelled out by the socially-accepted reward of a weekend sleep-in. “Researchers found that subjects who cut their sleep down by five hours during the week, but made up for it on the weekend with extra sleep, still paid a cost. That cost included measurable differences: excess calorie intake after dinner, reduced energy expenditure, increased weight, and detrimental changes in how the body uses insulin.”

Therefore, a lack of sleep may not only contribute to the risk of chronic diseases but also increases your chances of becoming overweight.

Again, I am a fan of giving my body the best shot I can. I’m in my 50s now, and there is a tug of war already in place between the delights of food consumption, how much exercise I can commit to in a day and my body’s compulsion to put a little something extra away for those tough winter times that may be lurking on the horizon. In other words, forget will-power, discipline, and unhelpful diets, getting a decent sleep sounds like the easiest way to maintain a healthy weight – who knew?

As I have started to understand sleep deprivation, and the negative impact it can have over time, my view on sleep has shifted dramatically. I now think it’s smarter to avoid getting into sleep debt in the first place. So, guess who has gotten all grown-up and goes to bed at a very sensible hour every night…?! (I want to say me, but it continues to be a work in progress). Ok, MOST nights it’s me.

The good news is we can change our habits. Even better, with knowledge, we can mitigate the known health risks of sleep deprivation and reap the benefits of taking sleep seriously.

What have you noticed has changed about your health when you pay attention to/ignore your need for quality sleep?