The Risks Of Sleepiness
Sleep loss can hurt a person's well being over time. It reduces your ability to remain alert and solve problems. You have a harder time thinking and making decisions. It weakens your ability to learn and remember things. It also slows your reaction time. You have a higher risk of injury or of being in an accident. Severe sleepiness over a long period of time makes you more likely to become depressed. These results of sleepiness affect some people more than others.
Being sleepy can affect you in the same way as drinking alcohol. Studies have shown that losing just a few hours of sleep each night can impair your ability to drive in the same way that drinking does. You only have to doze off for just a few seconds in order to cause an accident. The U. S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that drowsy driving hurts an average of 40,000 people and results in more than 1,500 deaths each year.
Other effects of sleepiness include the following:
A short attention span
Failing to pay attention to unimportant tasks
Microsleep attacks - suddenly falling asleep for just a few seconds
Warning Signs of Sleepiness:
Falling asleep at a bad time
Feeling restless and grouchy
Having to check your work repeatedly
Having a hard time focusing on tasks
Having an "I don't care" attitude