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Running Head: CORRELATIONS WITH SLEEP DEPRIVATION 1
Correlations with Sleep Deprivation:
The Physiological Side Effects
CORRELATIONS WITH SLEEP DEPRIVATION 2
There are many debates whether sleep deprivation is a causing factor to other health
risks. Sleep deprivation puts individuals at high health risks for obesity, which also leads to
diabetes. When an individual is sleep deprived, he/she are at higher risk of obesity due to high
cortisol levels, and is a contributing factor to diabetes. According to the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary, obesity is the excessive storage of fat in the body. Sleep deprivation occurs in a
variety of ways such as working overnight shifts and having consecutive late nights. People need
seven to eight hours of sleep to feel rested (Rosenfeld, 2014), some people can have less, but
inadequate, less than four hours, have been linked to health problems like obesity (Rosenfeld,
2014). Some important factors to consider when discussing sleep deprivation are the quality of
sleep, the physical effects of sleep deprivation, types and causes of sleep deprivation, and weight
gain as an effect of sleep deprivation.
Not only is the amount of sleep we have in a night important, but the quality of sleep as
well. Sleep is highly structured and organized in four different stages. Light sleep, stages one and
two, make up about 50% of sleep and is scattered through the night (Rosenfeld, 2014). Deep
sleep, stages three and four, is what restores the body of energy and is found to be important for
pain processing, making up about 25% of sleep and is grouped in the first four to five hours of
sleep (Rosenfeld, 2014). With those stages there is non-REM and REM sleep (rapid eye
movement). Non-REM sleep occurs during stages one through four, after stage four an individual
will enter REM sleep. REM is when an individual will have their deepest sleep, and when the
body gets the most rest. If individuals do not sleep long enough or frequently gets woken up
throughout the night they will not reach or get enough of REM sleep, so when they wake up in
the morning they do not feel well rested (Rosenfeld, 2014). This is common amongst individuals
with sleep apnea. The effects specifically towards REM deprivation differ from total sleep
deprivation. If a person is in their non-REM sleep, they still emit what is called slow wave sleep
CORRELATIONS WITH SLEEP DEPRIVATION 3
that shows in EEG activity (Hu, 2008). This is still beneficial to one’s physical help than no sleep
