Web design and development is, probably, one of the most booming areas lately, with more and more people choosing this as their life long profession. As a fairly young line of work, very few statistical data has been gathered regarding any health issues that might arise from doing this kind of work. We’re not claiming this as a general rule, but at least the status of the web community seems to be of a permanent wake state. Just ask yourself when’s the last time you went to bed earlier than 10 at night or had a full week of at least 8 hour sleep per day. Whether you’re one of those who manage to keep a tight and healthy schedule, or part of the rest of us e-zombies, read on and, perhaps, be amazed at what lack of sleep can do to the human body.

Those of us who deliberately work 20 hour days, 7 days a week, are slowly, but surely, destroying our bodies from the inside out. There’s no easy way to put this. Prolonged sleep deprivation is like smoking 3 packs a day. Couple this with more than 16 of those hours spent at a desk, in front of a monitor and the future doesn’t look so bright for us web folk.

We’re referring to voluntary lack of sleep, not clinical insomnia, which is another bowl of cereal altogether. If you suspect you’re suffering from clinical insomnia, I suggest checking out the wiki on this condition and, for your own sake, see a physician as soon as possible.

A lot of people don’t realize that sleep is a state in which the body also goes into maintenance mode, not just relax mode. During sleep our bodies undergo a series of essential changes: your brain consolidates data that’s been buffered into your memory during the day, your muscles relax and get toned after being worked up all day long (which doesn’t necessarily mean exercising), even your hair and nails grow more during sleep than when you’re awake.

El braino

But probably the most important part of sleep is the fact that your brain is able to take a brake, fix any problems that might have occurred during the wake state and even regenerate parts of itself. It’s as essential to life as eating and breathing. And without sleep or, with very little of it, our brains get some serious errors which can lead to long term effects on our lives.
Sleep deprivation, as it’s technically known, takes a great toll on the mind: in such a state the temporal lobes, responsible with perception, memory and speech basically pass part of their functions on to the parietal lobes (top of your head) of your brain.  As a result, someone that is sleep deprived may suffer lack of concentration, confusion, slurred speech, irritability and memory lapses.

On the other hand, the pre frontal cortex of your brain acts funny when your body is deprived of sleep: it goes into overdrive as a compensatory maneuver. The problem is that after a long period of deprivation, the brain simply can’t handle it anymore and parts of this area of your brain, as well as others can become damaged, leading to psychosis and bipolar disorders. Eventually, your brain becomes incapable of putting an emotional event into perspective. It’s not a permanent state of being nutters, but it still has great impact on your everyday life, not to mention work. Imagine designing a website for an awards ceremony while you think little tiny green men want to come steal your tablet stylus (just an example; I’d like to apologize to any little green men reading this that felt offended).

Microsleep

Fortunately, our brains are smarter than we are and when too long a time has passed without proper sleep, something called microsleep happens. For 30-60 seconds, the brain sends a shut down signal to your body and you fall asleep. This isn’t something one can control or avoid, it’s a fail safe to stop you from killing yourself, but it doesn’t mean that not getting enough sleep won’t, if you keep it up too long, ultimately kill you. What, you thought at one point you’d just shut down and sleep for two days and then everything is back to normal? Sorry to disappoint.

It’s a heavy problem

Sleep deprivation has many weird side effects, like the way brain functions get switched around, but perhaps one of the most variable effects is weight gain/loss. In some people, sleep deprivation causes severe weight loss. In others, weight gain. It’s, most likely, a conjuncture of factors that determine this outcome, like the way your circadian cycles (day/night) are disrupted, what kind of food you eat, when you eat it, if you just spend your time fully at a desk or also go out etc. And before anyone thinks about it, NO – you are not the exception that is going to have neither gain nor loss in their weight.

Aww, look at the kitty…

Some argue that the most important side effect of sleep deprivation is attention deficit. In the case of us web folk, attention lapses are not a matter of life and death, but they could cost us our jobs or projects. Forgetting to design a website’s footer or placing a different logo than the client’s or querying the wrong database table could even result in immediate termination of said project. Not to mention that sleep deprivation can actually decrease your efficiency. Work better, not more should be a directive I think everyone of us would be better off employing.

Some argue that the most important side effect of sleep deprivation is attention deficit

Killing me softly

Of course, there is a psychological layer to voluntary sleep deprivation. For people who work in web design/development, most of the time the motivation is making money/building my career/getting ahead/etc. While those are very good reasons to work more and better, it doesn’t mean you have to destroy yourself trying to get there. Those extra 3 hours of “work” are far better spent getting from 4 hours sleep to 7 hours. Just think about this, the next time you want to pull an all-nighter: Sleep deprivation can be used as an interrogation technique. Yeah, like torture. Would you, voluntarily, get on rack and yell “Pull!”? No, you wouldn’t. Well, some would, but that’s beside the point.
I’d normally end this article with some sort of advice to help you out but I really have only one: just go to sleep. Sleep deprivation isn’t a drug, so just stop killing yourself. It really isn’t worth it just for a few hours. Now stop reading this at 2 in the morning and go to sleep. Nighty night, everyone!