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
  • 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).