Dr. Lilac comes to answer this question.

In this era where money never sleeps, we often see news about sudden deaths after staying up late.

This put friends who were used to going to bed late and staying up late into a deep panic. Then, many people asked on the Lilac Doctor App: How harmful is staying up late?

What are the dangers?

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Today, Dr. Lilac will talk to you about the dangers of staying up late.

1. Increased risk of death. Lack of sleep and staying up late are often accompanied by too long working hours and too short rest. Many studies in the past decade have shown that the risk of death for people who sleep for 5 hours or less is 6 to 7

Nearly 2 times the hours of sleep.

The sleep time mentioned here is the continuous sleep time from sleeping at night to the next morning, not the kind of irregular and fragmented sleep.

2. Increased risk of heart disease and stroke The risk of heart disease and stroke brought about by staying up late has been recently confirmed.

A well-known paper published in 2012, which compiled data on 2 million people from 34 large studies, showed that people whose jobs involved night shifts had a 5% increased risk of stroke and a 23% increased risk of myocardial infarction.

In Canada, 7% of myocardial infarctions can be attributed to night shift workers.

Other studies have shown that people who stay up late for a long time will have a higher load on their blood pressure and heart rate regulation, and the regulation of vasoconstriction and immune function will also be abnormal. On the one hand, it increases the possibility of transient ischemia of the heart;

Increased risk of coronary atherosclerosis and plaque instability, which may lead to myocardial infarction.

Both factors make fatal "malignant arrhythmias" more likely to occur, eventually leading to sudden cardiac death.

Therefore, it makes sense in theory that staying up late increases the risk of sudden death. It has been confirmed in population studies and should not be underestimated.

3. Increased feelings of restlessness and anxiety. Many people do not feel at ease when staying up late. They are often accompanied by a lot of stress and anxiety.

For example, a certain deadline for work and study is approaching, and you stay up late to catch up on work.

Some people stay up late not working, but because they are constantly distracted by things they can do or not do, such as online shopping, in order to relieve the pressure caused by serious work and postpone the arrival of stress. But in the end, there will be no delay and they need to face more things head-on.

Much anxiety.

To paraphrase a saying from the psychology of procrastination, "We stay up late with anxiety, and we stay up late with anxiety. We stay up late with anxiety and stay up all night in panic."

At the same time, staying up late itself may also cause anxiety and other problems.

One study involving 10,000 subjects found that sleep-deprived people were up to five times more likely to experience depression and anxiety.

We have long known that stress and anxiety themselves will greatly increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and acute attacks. Therefore, staying up late and anxiety are a vicious cycle that will eventually lead to actual damage to physical health.

4. Increased risk of cancer. A study on breast cancer found that night shift workers have a 50% increased risk of breast cancer, while those who often suffer from jet lag have a 70% increased risk. This may be related to the low immune function caused by sleep cycle disorders.

related.

For example, people who stay up late often develop oral ulcers, and oral ulcers are more likely to occur in people with low immune systems.

The important function of the immune system is immune surveillance of cancer cells. A normal immune system can eliminate most abnormally differentiated cells in a timely manner. However, when the immune surveillance function is weakened, loopholes may appear, increasing the risk of cancer.

5. Staying up late for a long time makes people stupid. In 2014, a study conducted a survey and evaluation of more than 3,000 late-nighters in various industries for more than ten years.

Half of these late-nighters work shift work more than 50 days a year.

The results found that these people's memory, reaction speed, and overall cognitive ability had a significant decline.

Although their cognitive function problems can be restored after they stop working shifts and enter a long-term normal schedule, it will take at least 5 years.

And their risk of liability accidents at work is much higher than normal.

6. Catching up on sleep cannot eliminate the harm. Catching up on sleep after staying up late actually disrupts the body's normal circadian rhythm, because the body's biological clock cannot be adjusted at will. It is closely related to light and habits.

Circadian light is transmitted to the body's biological clock - the supraoptic nucleus in the brain - through visual perception. The supraoptic nucleus adjusts various neurological and endocrine regulations, including regulating melatonin secreted by the pineal gland, to adjust the circadian rhythm of the entire body.

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Staying up late is classified as "delayed sleep phase syndrome" in sleep medicine, which is a type of sleep cycle disorder. Others include jet lag, irregular sleep, non-24-hour sleep cycle, etc.

Unless you can completely simulate the light changes between day and night, staying up late will definitely disrupt your biological clock.