If you feel extremely sleepy between 2:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon, scientists suggest that you might be at a higher risk of early death.
Let me explain why?
This is the story of Ranjan Das, the CEO of one of India’s leading IT companies, SAP. He followed a strict fitness regime regular workouts, jogging, a healthy diet, and even marathon participation. His lifestyle seemed perfectly fit from the inside out. But then, on October 21, 2009, shocking news broke that he suffered a fatal heart attack while returning home from the gym.
Yes, a completely athletic person, who regularly engaged in cardiovascular exercises like jogging and even trained his heart for marathons, died of a heart attack at a young age. The believed reason? He strongly thought that sleeping just four hours a night was enough to stay fit and fresh.
But can sleep deprivation really cause heart attacks?
How did a health-conscious CEO overlook such a crucial factor?
You may have heard about Daylight Saving Time. In the USA, clocks are set an hour forward in March to extend daylight hours in summer. This shift happens at 2:00 AM, causing people to lose an hour of sleep. According to reports, heart attacks increase by 25% on that day and remain 25% higher for the next two days. I repeat—just one hour of lost sleep can cause such an impact. Interestingly, the reverse effect is observed in November when clocks are set back an hour—heart attacks decrease by 22%. Fascinating, right?
The world’s sleep scientists have a group called the Association of Professional Sleep Societies. Their reports reveal that sleep-deprived individuals feel the most intense drowsiness during two specific time windows between 2:00 to 7:00 AM and 2:00 to 5:00 PM.
Here’s where it gets weird: Most heart attack deaths also occur during these exact timeframes. Initially, scientists thought this was just a coincidence.However, last year, Ahmedabad’s Zydus Hospital conducted a survey of 243 heart patients. They found that around 37% of them suffered from inadequate sleep. Even the European Heart Journal published a study analyzing 470,000 people from eight different countries. It revealed that sleep-deprived individuals had a 48% higher chance of dying from heart disease and a 15% increased risk of death from a heart stroke.
The key takeaway?
If you feel excessively sleepy in the afternoon, it’s a natural alarm from your body indicating severe sleep deprivation, and your heart may already be weakening. Every Indian must understand the science behind sleep and how lack of it can create numerous health issues many of which we experience daily without realizing their root cause.
For instance, I used to frequently get painful mouth ulcers that lasted for days, making speaking difficult—especially in my profession. Initially, I assumed it was a vitamin B-complex deficiency and started taking supplements, but the problem persisted. Eventually, I discovered that whenever I lacked proper sleep for two consecutive nights, I would develop ulcers. This made me realize how many health problems could be linked to insufficient sleep—and how the solution is as simple as making sleep a priority.
This is why this article is crucial, especially for those struggling with sleep. Every human spends one-third of their life sleeping, making it essential to have proper knowledge about it. Now, you understand why prioritizing sleep is necessary without it, our health and performance become hollow.
So, let’s work together to scientifically improve our sleep for a lifetime. The first step is understanding sleep stages so we can optimize them.
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Our Sleep Is Divided Into Four Stages:
Three non-REM stages and One REM stage. Scientists categorize them as:
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage, where your eyes move around while you sleep.
Non-REM stages, where your eyes remain still.
Two of these stages are particularly important:
Deep sleep (Non-REM stage 3): This is where your body’s physiological processes, such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, immunity, and growth, undergo repair and reset.
REM sleep: This stage is crucial for mental processes like decision-making, emotional regulation, and memory consolidation.
When you fall asleep, you first enter Non-REM stage 1, then move to Non-REM stage 2 after 10-15 minutes. As your sleep deepens, you enter Non-REM stage 3, which is the deepest sleep stage, where your brain releases delta waves and is least active. After this, your brain cycles back to stage 2, then stage 1, and finally into REM sleep, where you experience dreams. The REM stage lasts for about 30-45 minutes, completing one full sleep cycle.
(I have already shared an article on Sleep Pattern :Check Here)
For a good night’s sleep, your body needs to complete four to five full sleep cycles per night. However, if you wake up in between—say, a phone call disturbs you during Non-REM stage 2 – your sleep cycle gets canceled and has to restart from stage 1, effectively wasting your sleep. This directly affects sleep quality.
If your sleep cycles are repeatedly disrupted, it doesn’t matter how many hours you sleep—your sleep remains incomplete, making you feel exhausted, as if you were intoxicated.
A 2011 Cancer Journal study found that consistently sleeping less than six hours increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 50%—the same risk level as having a first-degree relative (parent or sibling) with cancer. The primary reason behind this? Chronic inflammation, which is a major cause of cancer. Sleep deprivation triggers widespread inflammation in the body, often showing up as simple symptoms like mouth ulcers. Now, imagine the damage it does to internal organs (Journal Link: https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.25507).
That’s why many people experience acne breakouts, headaches, and more due to lack of sleep. And for men, here’s some bad news—research shows that if a young, healthy adult sleeps less than five hours per night for just a week, their testosterone levels drop by 10-15%, whereas natural aging only causes a 1% decrease per year.
“Sleep isn’t just rest;
it’s the silent architect of your survival,
Ignore it,
and your body drafts its own exit plan.”
So, what do you think now?
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