C. Booth
Last Updated on January 7, 2021
Not everyone seems to like to sleep shortly after it gets dark. Some people suffer from insomnia symptoms, others have a lot to process, some have tons of work to do, and others may be just into the night-like life.
After working for the whole day, the only time these folks have to enjoy is the night. Most of them like themselves as night owls, or shall we say nocturnal animals?
They think that they do themselves a favor by staying awake at night, scrolling up and down their social media pages, chatting with their international friends, watching their favorite horror movies or just lying on their beds with a book in hand.
At first glance, this night-owl habit may seem like a normal thing, but it is, fact, impacting their health negatively. Over time, they will not just complain about being deprived of enjoying healthy sleep habits; high blood pressure, mature death, weight gains, and others are all troubles to encounters down the way.
1. High blood pressure
Have you recently noticed any suspicious high blood pressure symptoms surfacing? Did you consult any specialist, asking about the best medicine for high blood pressure or the recommended high blood pressure diet to follow?
If you did, then let us dig a bit deeper for the roots of your health problem. Medical studies reveal that staying awake for too long during the night contributes to increasing your chances of suffering from high blood pressure.
If you are already on an unhealthy diet, don’t get enough healthy sleep and don’t work out; and you are a night owl on the top of all this, then you are endangered by hypertension.
2. No time for working out
We admit that being an early bird; waking up in the mornings of the coldest days in winter is challenging. But think of all the health benefits you’d get to enjoy if you go running or jogging for 2 hours every day!
This is a golden chance that night owls miss. This is not because they are too lazy to work out but rather because staying awake at night does not really allow them to wake up early and perform any mobility activities.
Of course, the optimal schedule of exercising is one which is based on the person’s preferences. But the issue of sleep deprivation in the case of night owls does not help much in setting the timing for workouts.
3. Weight gain due to eating at night
If you stay awake at night until the early hours of the morning, you’d definitely think of having a late dinner or lunch, right? Night owls experience this too. But they might think that selecting the best food to eat at night and enjoying the whole meal have no repercussions.
The consumption of fatty and calorie-filled foods in the middle of the night complicates the metabolism and digestion of the foods. The problem is that the foods that you crave at night are often unhealthy.
Evidently, ingesting such unhealthy foods leads to the gain of more weight. So if you are a night owl, and you question how to stop eating at night, we’d say stop staying awake late at night!
4. Higher risk of developing diabetes
Did you know that the risk of diabetes increases when you stay awake for too long during the night? Night owls have higher chances of getting diabetes type II if compared to morning people.
When you sleep late at night and wake up early in the morning, you tend to do everything in unhealthy ways. Your behavior changes and the metabolism process gets affected too. Due to this, glucose will not be rapidly and properly processed.
If we combine this with other issues in your unhealthy diet, the result will be a high risk of diabetes. There are foods that reduce the risk of diabetes but not without sleeping on time. Therefore, enjoying healthy sleep can reduce the risk of diabetes.
5. Inability to control diabetes
If it is already too late, and you are already diabetic, staying awake late at night can still harm you. In fact, being a night owl makes diabetes control even more difficult. Sleeping late can decrease the glycemic control ability in your body.
This will also make your diabetic condition even worse. Additionally, things could develop into an inability to maintain healthy cholesterol levels. These effects of nigh-owl-being habit are suggested by experts and unveiled by several studies.
Eventually, ignoring these serious medical conditions together with sleep deprivation effects can lead you to your final destination.
6. Sleep deprivation
Healthily, an average person should sleep for 8 hours a day; no more and no less. If you are a night owl, staying awake until 3 AM, and having to get to work at 8:30 AM make having enough sleep impossible.
Due to lack of healthy sleep, your productivity at work during the day will be as low as that of a zombie. Over time, during workdays, in particular, night owls would force themselves to sleep early, but they would mostly have to put up with severe insomnia.
Taking chemical insomnia medications, having insomnia treatments or using natural remedies for insomnia would be their last hope. They would spend hours, searching for how to deal with insomnia which may not be effective because they got used to staying awake late.
7. Being a big risk taker
When you stay awake late at night, crazy ideas start to pop up in your mind. Silence and quietness are inspirational, are not they? You could be sitting in bed at 2 AM; suddenly, you decide to go online to spend some money.
The risk-taking desire spikes in your body and drives you to conclude the craziest transactions ever like buying the most expensive dresses from Zara’ online stores, an ancient Egyptian antique piece from some auction or purchasing a costly vehicle, all done using your…SAVINGS!
Well, this is the least of your troubles as long as you don’t do something that will lead you to jail or the ER.
8. Depression and moodiness
Night owls are in danger of suffering from depression and anxiety. A 2015 study suggests that late chronotype sleepers are likely exposed to mood variations throughout the day, and especially in the morning.
Other studies reveal that poor mood and depression are issues faced by night owls who are specifically diagnosed with diabetes. Neuroticism seems to have been associated with late-night sleep.
People who are early birds with healthy sleeping habits are less moody, more active and positive throughout the day. They don’t let anything or anyone get on their nerves, and they don’t need any anxiety or depression meds to get through the day.
9. Driving problems
It stands to reason that you cannot be 100% alert and conscious in the morning when driving to work or the kids’ school. One of the major sleep deprivation effects is sleepiness in the morning.
This is normal because you did not get your 8 hours of sleep the night before. The worst that can happen is that you’d be driving your car in the morning, and then out of a sudden, all what you would see is total darkness.
Few hours later, you would wake up in the ER or even worse; the intensive care unit (the ICU). Yes, indeed, night owls are also in danger of having car accidents due to sudden asleep-falling while driving.
10. Mature death
We are sorry to bring this up to you, but being a night owl can kill you. We are reversing the convention of keeping the best for the last. In our case, we kept the most fatal for the last.
A study published in the Chronobiology International unveiled the catastrophic effect of being a night owl, which would hopefully motivate you to change your late-night habits. People who sleep very late at night have a higher risk of death than those who sleep early.
When health problems such as developing diabetes, unhealthy cholesterol levels, neurological issues, and more serious medical conditions clump together, yet no action is taken by the night owls to put things back on the right track, these people’ life expectancy scales back off.
So do something now about your late-night staying habits before it is too late!
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