Deep, restful sleep is essential for one's health, mood, and overall well-being. Whether it's due to anxiety, an uncomfortable mattress, or ineffective temperature control, a bad night's sleep can have a variety of consequences. Below are some of these surprising effects and what you can do to avoid them.

How the Body Is Affected by Lack of Sleep

1. Risk of Chronic Disease

If you regularly toss and turn at night and don't get rest easily, you are at a greater risk of cardiovascular and heart diseases. The precise link is unknown, but researchers understand that lack of sleep weakens immunity, disrupts glucose metabolism, affects blood pressure, and results in increased inflammation.

Other potential risks to poor sleepers include an increased chance of heart attack, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. To improve sleep, avoid caffeinated drinks like coffee, tea, and soft drinks in the late afternoon and evening.

2. Potential for Accidents

Even if you don’t feel sleepy at night, the lack of rest can catch up with you during the daytime. Feelings of drowsiness while you’re driving can lead to missed traffic signals and result in traffic accidents or moving violations. Sluggishness at work can be a factor in trip-and-fall accidents and lead to dangerous inattention around manufacturing equipment, forklifts, or other high-risk areas.

3. Changes in Mood

Your brain forms connections during sleep that help place short-term memories into long-term storage. Lack of sleep disrupts this process. It also prevents sufferers from concentrating fully on a task, so short-term memory is affected, as well.

Likewise, lack of sleep inhibits your ability to handle stress, so you might become moody, irritable, anxious, or depressed. Consider yoga, aerobic exercise, and meditation, which help reduce stress, clear the mind, and stimulate the production of the sleep hormone melatonin.

If an uncomfortable mattress is contributing to your poor sleep, contact Reliable Bedding Company, a wholesale mattress store and manufacturer in High Point, NC. They've been providing restful slumber to customers throughout the Triad region for more than 50 years. They offer double-sided, pillow-top, and memory foam mattresses and other custom bedding products. Reach out to them online or call (336) 883-0648 to ask about store hours, pricing, and product availability.