Did you know that if you don’t get enough sleep, you might be inclined to gamble more?
Yep-indeedy. You might be more likely to go out with a less attractive date, too.
It’s no secret that not getting enough sleep is bad. Most of us already know that it can lead to cognitive and memory problems, weight gain, loss of muscle coordination and effectiveness, mood disorders and even heart disease.
But there are more troubling side effects of sleep deprivation that you might not expect. Some of them are downright weird!
When the Associated Professional Sleep Societies met in 2014, sleep researchers shared some rather strange effects of not sleeping that they’d found. As Vox reported this week, these results were “preliminary, but striking all the same”:
- Like the classic “beer goggles” effect, sleep deprivation may muddle our views of attractiveness and cause us to be attracted to people we might not otherwise. Sleepy men rated photos of “the least attractive models” as more attractive then they did when they were rested.
- Not getting enough sleep may make us less able to tolerate pain. People with less sleep were significantly more sensitive to pain and could cope with less of it.
- Yet at the same time, it may also make us less empathetic toward the pain of others. Subjects with less sleep seemed to care less when viewing photos of hands stung by needles.
- It may cause us to take more, and potentially bad, risks. Sleep deprivation made people less concerned about losing money during gambling.
- It may also cause us to slow down without realizing we are doing it. People who went without sleep and took a classic reaction-time test very often thought they were doing fine when they were doing worse.
In a nutshell, sleep deprivation can numb us to our surroundings, our behavior and our own bodies. And it can make us less connected to others as well as ourselves. Sleepier people were more likely to feel separated from their own body and thoughts and had more trouble recognizing other people’s emotions.
Worst of all, we might not even realize these effects are happening!
Of course, before you get super freaked out, these findings mainly apply to people who’ve been chronically deprived of sleep or deprived for a long period of time…like 24 hours. If you got a bad night’s snooze last night, you might be dragging a bit energy-wise but in terms of empathy, dating, pain, gambling and reaction time, you’re probably OK.
Multiple bad nights of sleep can cause serious long-term complications, though. So make sure you’re doing what you can to prioritize rest and get as many great, refreshing zzzs as possible.
Sleep tight, Urbanites!