When there is a lack of rest in our brain, the functions start to lose effectiveness. We feel slower to respond, less memory and with noticeable muscle fatigue.
All of these effects have a scientific explanation and point to the importance of brain tissue for daily life. Now, optimal maintenance of this tissue involves getting enough sleep.
Several factors intervene in the lack of rest. There are people who sleep badly due to psychological disorders, such as anxiety, insomnia, and others who do it due to bad habits when they go to sleep.
The situation is quite serious in the long run. We think that a student with poor rest will not be able to advance his career adequately. A worker will not perform the same in his job and will even run life risks if he handles machinery, for example.
What happens to the brain due to lack of rest? What processes are affected? Below, we’ll look at the effects of lack of rest on three major areas associated with brain health: mood, memory, and circadian rhythm.
Lack of rest alters mood
Parents who have spent all night watching their children know this. The next day is loaded with irritability, and everything seems to make too angry, even if it’s small things.
This mood disorder comes from disconnection that lack of rest causes between the cerebral amygdala and the rest of the tissue of the nervous system. A disconnected amygdala acts on impulse, without mediating actions in the cerebral cortex..
The negative becomes more negative and worse in the amygdala’s interpretation of things. Under normal conditions, well asleep, this way of interpreting crosses other brain barriers that produce a more consistent response. After a sleepless night there are no limits to anger.
It is not a permanent effect, as after sleeping the required hours, the system reconnects. In any case, in people who sleep badly often, irritability can significantly alter your social relationships.
Worse results in the study
THE research on sleep, suggest that the hippocampus is another region seriously affected by lack of rest. And this area is crucial for students, because memory is processed there.
A poor night’s sleep decreases your chances of retaining new information the next day. Even the preservation of the images is ruined, apart from the data, which can compromise the processing of memories of the previous day and of what is taking place.
This reinforces the goal of achieving adequate sleep hygiene in students, especially college students. Professional careers require a degree of attention and retention that can be stimulated by sleep at night.
When I sleep, the hippocampus transfers memories from its neurons to other lobes of the brain. This process is essential for recording thoughts and setting up the future.
Lack of rest and melatonin
Humans move according to a daily circadian rhythm that lasts about 24 hours. This sleep-wake cycle was externally marked by the hours of sunlight. Within the body, this regulation responds to the hormone melatonin.
Melatonin stops its production when it receives light and, conversely, is produced in greater quantities in the dark. This way, the hormone increases its concentration to encourage us to sleep and rest.
Lack of rest at the right time kicks our body clocks up and takes us out of the normal sleep-wake cycle. This erroneously exposes us to light, both solar and artificial, which alters the production of melatonin.
In the medium term, if the wake-sleep cycle is constantly changing schedule, we can enter phase shifts. This means that It is increasingly difficult for us to sleep at the time when we want to and we have a hard time waking up to be active in the morning.
Sleep hygiene for lack of rest
We’ve seen how lack of rest affects the brain, but there’s something we can do about it. There are sleep hygiene measures we can take to help our brain tissue to work properly.
Let’s remember that through the nervous system we communicate with the outside world and with our loved ones, so taking care of them is a priority. A good rest will ensure a better mood and more attention.
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