Do Gamers Get Enough Sleep?

Do core gamers get enough sleep? I asked myself that around 1:00 Oclock in the morning over the course of the past couple of days. The answer…Absolutely not. I wake up every morning at 6:00 AM get ready and play Diablo 3, leave for work at 7:30 AM. Get home around 5:00 PM, take care of a couple of errands. Start playing again around 6:00 PM. From 6:00PM – 1:00 AM I am playing games. Head to bed around 1:00 after changing the babies diaper, and repeat the process.

So this looks like the scattered life of a game addict. I try to balance this as well as spend time with my family and god forbid, eat. Yea, I do eventually need sustinance. So we all know that sleep deprivation is bad, but how bad is it and is it worth spend that extra 3 hours on a raid. Lets see.

10 Effects of Sleep Deprivation: Found from Web MD: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/10-results-sleep-loss

1. Sleepiness Causes Accidents

Sleepiness causes accidents.  This comes to me as no surprise.  That woozy feeling you get when you are overly tired.  That’s bad!  For example, “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that fatigue is a cause in 100,000 auto crashes and 1,550 crash-related deaths a year in the U.S. The problem is greatest among people under 25 years old” -Web MD.  With these kinds of figures one could assume that it was the equivalent of drinking and driving.  This feeling of sleepiness means you need some sleep.

2.  Sleep Loss Dumbs You Down

Sleep loss effects your thinking.  This includes but is not limited to:  Inability to focus, reason, problem solve, reduces reaction times, etc.  This means what?  If you keep losing on that raid or dungeon and can’t progress maybe you should just go to sleep.  Staying up and exhausting yourself does not make you better, it actually makes these long raids more difficult.  From a gamers point of view.  This is the worst.  Sleep loss destroys performance.  Get some sleep you late night raid monsters.

3.  Serious Health Issues

Health issues like:  Heart Disease, Heart attack, Heart Failure, Irregular Heartbeat, High Blood Pressure, Stroke, Diabetes.  These are the ones that have been listed but I have even heard of some gamers suffering from Kidney Failure and Coma.  Yes, this does happen.  Lack of sleep will destroy you both physically and psychologically.

4.  Kills Sex Drive

All of those late night raids on WoW destroyed you physically.  Well guess what, you probably aren’t gettin any.  Not that you wanted it with how exhausted you are.

5.  Sleepiness is Depressing

If you are sleeping less than six hours of sleep every night than you are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.  Both of which can severely impact your daily life, and social life.  Don’t be a victim of this.  Get out of the rut, wake up and go to bed.  It’s optimal to get 7-8 hours of sleep.  6 is a minimum.

6.  Lack of Sleep Ages your…Skin

Seriously, if you don’t sleep you start to look older.  When you don’t get enough sleep your body produces Cortisol which breaks down the proteins that make your skin smooth and beautiful.  The lack of sleep also causes the body to produce too little hormone required for growth.  It actually can stunt growth.  So be careful when kids are staying up late, if they are waking up early it can effect their growth.

7.  Sleepiness makes you forget

You may not believe it, but I forget either way.  My wife believes that I am the forget master.  But being tired does encourage the memory loss master.  You are more likely to forget about things if you are tired.  Getting sleep and eating a healthy breakfast will improve your ability to think and remember.

8.  Losing sleep can make you fat

The reasoning for this is due to an increase in appetite.  When we don’t sleep much we have a tendency to eat more.  This applies to those who have slept less than 6 hours.  This is followed by a craving for high-fat, high-carbohydate foods.  Some believe that good sleep should be a standard part of weight loss programs.

9.  Doubles the risk of death

Nuff said.  I don’t think there is much more I can say about this.  Other than, remember all those things I told you earlier.  Everything is more likely to kill you while you are tired.  Sleep!  Please.

10.  Sleep loss impairs judgement about when we should sleep

This happens to me when I stay up too late.  You want to sleep but feel like you can’t sleep.  This is problematic.  You need to sleep so you can sleep.  Simple as that.

So what we learn today is that sleep plays a big role in our life.  I’m going to test myself and I’m going to start focusing on getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep from this point on.  I will begin posting weekly updates on my health and how I have started feeling since getting good nights sleep.
If you have any comments or questions please comment below.  I would love to hear your thoughts, and opinions.