According to a new study, sleep deprivation causes changes in facial features and these changes are often termed as symptoms of the disorder.
Sleep deprivation is a public health epidemic with over 50-70 million US adults suffering from this disorder. Researchers of a new study found that sleep deprivation not only affects a person's health but also changes his/her facial features. The disorder is often accompanied by hanging eyelids, redder eyes, more swollen eyes and darker circles under the eyes.
The researchers also found that people with this disorder often have paler skin, droopy corners of the mouth and more wrinkles or fine lines. Sleep deprivation also makes people look sadder which given an impression of being more fatigued.
"Since faces contain a lot of information on which humans base their interactions with each other, how fatigued a person appears may affect how others behave toward them," said Tina Sundelin, MSc, lead author and doctoral student in the department of psychology at Stockholm University in Stockholm, Sweden in a press release. "This is relevant not only for private social interactions, but also official ones such as with health care professionals and in public safety."
The study was conducted on 10 people who were photographed both before having a good night's sleep of 8 hours and after being sleep deprived for 31 hours. Researchers made the above conclusions after 40 participants rated the 20 facial photographs with respect to 10 facial cues including fatigue and sadness.
Researchers noted that their findings were very important as facial features generally affect the judgments of a person's attributes such as trustworthiness, aggressiveness and competence.
Sleep deprivation leads to heart disease, fluctuations in weight and even hallucinations. Experts recommend a minimum of seven hours of sleep per night for adults. A recent CDC statement reported that over 4 percent of the American population use sleep medication to help sleep. According to a Bloomberg report, prescriptions for sleep medications have tripled over the past two decades. More than 70 million Americans are plagued with sleeping disorders or are sleep deprived.
The study was published in the September issue of the journal Sleep.
