Causes
- Procrastination
- Being overworked
- Bad time management
- Use of electronics before sleep
Consequences
- Decrease in cognitive performance
- Worse short-term / working memory
- Worse performance in various tasks
- Potential permanant brain damage
- Loss of memory over extended periods of time
- Neural connections become weaker or break down completely
- All-day lethargy
- Increase in risks for various diseases
- Cancer
- Dementia
- …
- Mood disorders
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Irratability & anger
- Weight gain
Recovery
In chronic sleep deprivation, there is a one-to-one relationship between the hours of sleep deprived and hours of extra sleep needed to recuperate. So it might not be enough to just stick to a consistent sleep schedule; afternoon naps (before 2 pm) may be instrumental in “speedy” recovery (Do realize that chronic sleep deprivation take a lot of time to make up for).