Sleep deprivation can take your job

If you are not sleeping well and enough, apart from health problems, you also run the risk of making bad financial decisions and even losing your job.

According to researchers, the effects of sleep loss on cognitive processing, concentration and memory are striking and acute.

"Processing speed deteriorates dramatically with shortened sleep duration, and you cannot simply 'catch up' on the weekends," said Emerson Wickwire, director at Howard County Center for Lung and Sleep Medicine in Columbia, Maryland.

Professionals in their 40s to 50s often feel sleepy at work that worsens as the afternoon progresses.

"They have a fear that some younger, more energetic person is going to take their job or their promotion," Nitun Verma from Washington Township Center for Sleep Disorders in Fremont, California, was quoted as saying in Huffington Post.

People in their 20s and 30s suffer from sleepless nights too.

"They have a more active social and professional night life, advancing their lives and careers, and often only sleep four to five hours a night," Verma added.

According to researchers, there are many reasons we do not get enough sleep.

Some people are workaholics or night owls.

Others are kept up by chronic stress or insomnia and some have a disorder like sleep apnea.

"We habituate to adenosine, a brain chemical that induces sleep. So even though judgment and performance are impaired, we think we are performing just fine," Wickwire added.

"The reality is, they are depriving their brains of a nutrient just as vital as food or water," he cautioned.

Warning signs are low energy, decreased sex drive, irritability, poor concentration and depressed mood.

Get eight hours of sleep at any cost to avoid such signs, Wickwire concluded.