Sleeping too little is never good: a study has shown that the amount of sleep affects many factors. If you don’t get enough sleep – and well – you risk this happening.
Have you ever wondered what happens to your body if you sleep too little?
It being understood that sleeping a few hours – and badly – affects your daily life, causing poor concentration, headache, exhaustion, know that the situation could get worse, especially in the case of young people.
Teenagers in particular are always led to believe that they will be able to be very late and wake up very early in the morning without too many problems, that sleeping only 3 hours after going dancing is fine, that the next morning they will still be very rested.
In the short term it is true: raise your hand who before the age of 20 has “had an evening”, returned home at dawn and the next morning got up early and was fine. For sure we all raised our hand and we also regretted those periods, but the point is, in the long run, this can lead to problems, even quite serious ones.
So, if you have a teenage son or daughter – or about to become one – know that they should never get little sleep, because this is likely to happen.
Sleeping too much can cause this danger
A study conducted as part of the SI! and presented at the congress of the European Society of Cardiology revealed what really happens to young people’s bodies when they sleep too little.
To arrive at the necessary conclusions, the researchers they took into account exactly 1,229 boys preteens and adolescents and assessed their sleep duration at 12, 14 and 16 years.
Scientists have used 8 hours of sleep as an average reference value, therefore patients who slept less than 7 hours a night were classified as very short sleepers, while those who slept at least 8 hours (but even more), on the other hand, were classified as optimal sleepers.
They then measured their BMI and what they found went beyond all expectations.
First of all, what emerged immediately is that the amount of sleep decreases with age: among 12-year-old patients, those who slept at least 8 hours a night were 34%, among 14-year-olds the percentage dropped to 23%, while among 16 it reached 19%
What emerged is that those who sleep too little are more likely to develop diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
Basically, teenagers who sleep less than 8 hours a night have a probability ranging from 21% to 72% of being overweight at the age of 12 and 14.
As one of the study’s authors, Jesús Martínez Gómez said, the study shows that “Most teens don’t get enough sleep and this is linked to excess weight and characteristics that promote weight gain, potentially predisposing them to future problems.”
Why do boys sleep too little? According to scholars, the fault lies with computers, tablets and cell phones, which cause them to sleep less than they should and often also ruin the quality of sleep.
However, another study also showed that sleeping with your partner aids sleep quality.
However, now we have yet another proof that sleep, for better or for worse, is essential for our life.