Sleep is one of the basic human needs, as vital as food, water, and oxygen. Thus, on the physical side, it aids in healing. On a mental level, it assists in cognition and benefits our emotional reactions. However, many people have insomnia, a long-lasting condition that makes it difficult to both fall and stay asleep or get enough restful sleep. This has led to the question: can insomnia kill you? Insomnia itself is not fatal. However, the long-term effects of chronic severe insomnia may result in health issues, some of which may be fatal.
This article will answer the following questions: What is insomnia? What leads to insomnia attacks? What are the effects of insomnia? Will insomnia kill me? What are the physiological and psychological consequences of sleep deprivation? Can you die from insomnia?
What is Insomnia?
In particular, insomnia is described as a sleep disorder in which a person fails to get sufficient, good-quality sleep even if they have the chance to do so. The prevalence rate is 10–30% in adults worldwide, which is believed to be even higher in some populations.
Insomnia can be classified into two main types:
- Acute Insomnia: This type is also known as acute insomnia. It typically lasts several days to a few weeks and is caused by a stressful event, sickness, or other significant life change (e.g., job loss, death, or exams). Primary acute insomnia is often self-limiting, and no intervention is required in such cases.
- Chronic Insomnia: This type occurs frequently, at least three nights a week, for over three consecutive months. Other medical conditions like depression, anxiety or pain, long-time unfavorable sleep practices, or irregular sleep schedules can cause persistent insomnia.
Read More: Is insomnia a mental illness? Know the top facts!
The Short-term Effects of Insomnia
While acute insomnia can be short-lived, its causes can significantly impact day-to-day life. Lack of sleep can lead to a variety of short-term consequences, including:
- Fatigue: Insomnia and its long-term outcome, the most evident and statistically probated effect is daytime fatigue.
- Impaired Cognitive Function: Insomnia impacts learning, focus, and analysis abilities. It can cause problems such as being unable to concentrate at work or school or throughout your duties all day.
- Mood Changes: Lack of sleep leads to increased sensitivity, nervousness, and even depression. Emotional density may deteriorate, allowing people to respond intensely to stress and conflict.
- Decreased Physical Performance: Rest is critical to enabling muscle rebuilding and the body’s general maintenance of good health. Sportsmen and people working in physical labor tend to have decreased performance levels, and the chance of injury is higher if they have insomnia.
- Accidents: Lack of sleep causes slower response for the body and mind and makes the person prone to accidents, especially in cars or machinery. Sleep deprivation causes individuals to be as impaired in motor coordination and judgment as a drunk person.
All these are more disagreeable than dangerous, and they have short-term effects that do not necessarily cause the patients’ lives to be in more danger. But if insomnia continues and sleep loss remains long-term, health concerns arise and become more severe.
The Long-Term Effects Of Insomnia: Can It Lead To Death?
If not treated, chronic insomnia can cause an array of secondary effects, which, although possibly terminal, are often not immediately fatal. The current recommended amount of sleep is detrimental to nearly all aspects of the body as it contributes to potentially severe health complications.
Cardiovascular Disease
Experts also agree that the widely studied effect of chronic insomnia is on the cardiovascular system. Some of the research has directly identified sleep deficiency as a factor in heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.
- Hypertension: Sleep is important in maintaining and balancing the peripheral nervous system, which regulates heartbeat and blood pressure. Untreated chronic insomnia affects this system, resulting in abnormally high blood pressure (hypertension), which is a leading cause of heart attacks and strokes.
- Heart Disease: This can cause heart and blood vessel diseases and can also lead to stroke and mental disorders; chronic sleep deprivation affects the internal blood vessels, causing inflammation and resulting in atherosclerosis. This state means reduced blood supply to the heart; it can cause heart attacks or other cardiovascular diseases.
- Stroke: Chronic insomnia puts the patient at a significantly higher risk of stroke because lack of sleep exerts pressure on the cardiovascular system. Lack of sleep increases the chances of blood clot formation, plaque buildup, and other factors that may cause a stroke.
Weakened Immune System
In this stage, one must note that sleep is an essential body function that helps boost the immune system. Schizophrenic insomnia results in weakened immune functioning, which makes it more vulnerable to catching diseases like colds, flu, and, in extreme cases, even pneumonia. Insomnia that kills you comes under this category. Thus, with time, it becomes difficult for the body to recover from diseases or die from other causes following a compromise on the immune system.
- Diabetes and Obesity: Lack of sleep has been known to cause metabolic abnormalities that cause diabetics as well as obesity. Lack of sleep makes insulin production and function to be poor since blood sugar levels will be raised and continue to rise, causing type 2 diabetes.
- Insulin Resistance: Inadequate sleep destabilizes insulin sensitivity, which is the body’s ability to recognize insulin, the hormone that controls glucose. This leads to the development of insulin resistance, which, if prolonged, leads to diabetes. This condition has various complications, including heart, nerves, and kidneys.
- Weight Gain and Obesity: Sleep deprivation alters the hormonal appetite controls: one of these is ghrelin, which makes the person hungrier; the other is leptin, which indicates when the person is full. The above hormonal changes contribute to overeating and, consequently, weight gain. This, in part, is because obesity, which is defined by a body mass index of greater than or equal to 30 kg/m2, is associated with a combination of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.
Mental Health Disorders
Repeated sleeplessness is associated with an increased predisposition to mental disorders like anxiety and depression, and sometimes there may be suicidal thoughts. Lack of sleep weakens the region of the brain responsible for decision-making and hence results in emotional instabilities that lead to mood swings and other mental health-related issues.
- Depression: These two diseases feed on each other; insomnia makes depression worse and vice versa. Scientific studies proved that patients diagnosed with chronic insomnia have a significantly higher chance of developing depression, and people with depressed mood tend to suffer from poor sleep.
- Anxiety: Likewise, anxiety disorder is also closely connected with insomnia. Lack of sleep leads to excessive worrying, and worrying results in increased anxiety levels, and being unable to sleep ends the cycle.
- Suicide Risk: Lack of sleep is one of the risk factors of suicide that has been firmly established. Compared to normal sleepers, chronic insomnia patients are more likely to experience hopelessness and despair and, therefore, suicidal ideation. Research has shown that insomnia, especially in combination with depression, greatly increases the hazard of suicidal tendencies.
Age-related cognitive decline and dementia
Continuous insomnia also affects the function of the human brain and may cause memory impairment, poor concentration at work, the development of dementia, and many other ailments. Memory consolidation and releasing toxic substances in the brain are important during sleep. One of these is beta-amyloid, a toxin that has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease in previous work.
A catalog of symptoms has been identified as potentially being part of sleep-deprivation-induced Alzheimer’s, including the buildup of Beta-Amyloid in the brain, which is known to be the cause of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. People living with chronic insomnia, therefore, have diminished cognitive health that worsens as they age, thus failing to lead functional lives.
Read More: Hypnosis For Insomnia: Is Hypnotherapy Beneficial For Better Sleep?
Fatal Insomnia: A Rare But Deadly Condition
While chronic insomnia is associated with several life-threatening conditions, there is a rare form of insomnia that is directly fatal: Fatal Insomnia as a Family Disorder or Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI). FFI is an autosomal recessive inherited neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive deterioration of sleep quality and death from chronic insomnia.
FFI is precipitated by a mix-up in the PRNP gene, causing prion protein deposition in the thalamus, which is the brain’s sleep regulation center. As these proteins accumulate, they disrupt proper signal transduction and break the complex sleep-wake cycle in the brain. Then, gradually, they lose the capacity to sleep and do not sleep anymore. Lack of sleep causes people with FFI to have catastrophic neurological and physical deterioration and die, usually within 18 months of the onset of symptoms.
Even an exceptional disease like FFI affects only 100 families worldwide. Thus, we can learn just how essential sleep is to human existence.
Wrap Up!
Are you or someone you know suffering from insomnia? Contact Solid Foundation Psychiatry for help today! Insomnia in itself is not lethal, but the lack of sleep it brings may contribute to dangerous medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and weakened immunity, as well as mental health disorders. Insomnia can critically hinder cognitive functioning and, in the long run, even lead to conditions such as the fatality of stroke or accidents. In rare instances, death is a result of lack of sleep, as in Fatal Familial Insomnia, all reducing the quality of our sleep in adult sleep society. Prompt medical consultation for chronic insomnia is vital to eradicate high risk and enhance physical health.