Imagine your arteries as smooth, flexible highways for blood flow. Now, picture what happens to those highways when they are subjected to constant stress and a lack of maintenance. This is the story of your arteries on no sleep—a tale of inflammation, plaque, and peril.
The first chapter begins with inflammation. Sleep deprivation floods your body with inflammatory chemicals that irritate and damage the delicate inner lining of your arteries, the endothelium. This makes the artery walls rough and “sticky,” losing their smooth, Teflon-like quality.
In the next chapter, this sticky surface becomes a trap. Circulating fats and cholesterol, particularly LDL (bad) cholesterol, begin to adhere to the damaged areas. Your body’s immune cells rush to the site but can get overwhelmed, contributing to a growing mound of debris. This is the beginning of an atherosclerotic plaque.
In the final, perilous chapter, this plaque grows over time, narrowing the arterial highway and restricting blood flow. This forces the heart to pump harder to get blood through. Worse, the inflammation can make the plaque unstable and prone to rupturing, which can trigger a blood clot that completely blocks the artery, causing a heart attack or stroke. This entire dangerous story can be prevented by making restorative sleep a priority.