Sleep deprivation affects your body and mind in myriad ways. As a sleep debt builds, your ability to concentrate decreases. Thinking becomes labored, and vision becomes blurry. You may experience headaches or feel especially agitated or moody. You start to forget things.
The immune system takes a hit as well. When sleep deprived, you have fewer white blood cells, and those you do have aren’t very effective in destroying unwanted antigens in the body. Your body temperature drops, and your heartbeat can become erratic. The greater the sleep debt, the more difficult it is to process visual information.
One of the cognitive difficulties we encounter with sleep deprivation is an inability to assess our cognitive difficulties. The sleep-deprived just can’t recognize the effects of sleep deprivation. So the likelihood of making risky decisions increases. This situation is especially dangerous in professions that offer little margin for error, such as law enforcement, heavy industry, health care or fire and rescue.