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By Sophie Kao
“I feel fine,” you say to yourself as your body’s stress levels heighten, neural activity slows and memory declines.
Nine hours of sleep. This is the minimum amount of sleep experts recommend a human being should be getting to maintain a healthy body. Yet, most people rarely get that amount. Research from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms that adults and adolescents sleeping less than six continuous hours per night, are significantly more likely to engage in unhealthy coping behaviors, such as the use of alcohol and opioids. The consequences of insufficient sleep are far more detrimental than what they initially appear.
Most people treat sleep deficiency as a minor inconvenience. However, neuroscience suggests it can actually quietly push the brain toward a risky, reward-seeking behavior. According to a National Institutes of Health (HIH) study on adolescents’ sleep patterns, sleep loss increases risk-taking by approximately 43% in adolescents and can cause up to 60% increase in emotional reactivity, leading to greater impulsivity and poor decision-making.
Sleep deprivation disrupts the brain’s reward system. When the body experiences a lack of sleep, it switches to survival mode, releasing dopamine to combat fatigue, improve alertness, and boost mood. As a result, the body’s urge to seek external dopamine to fulfill the excitement and motivation through a substance that can replicate a rewarding sensation becomes much more tempting.
Chronic sleep deprivation also increases the risk of opioid relapse. When people are first recovering from Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), they are no longer satisfying their brain with the pleasure that opioids once offered. Now, the amygdala is shooting crave signals stronger than ever, which makes the chances of relapsing dangerously high.
What’s more, if patients lose sleep, their increased alertness would contribute to those craving signals. The NIH describes a “vicious cycle” in which it begins with sleep loss contributing to impulsivity, lowers pain threshold, and increases the desire to use opioids. The connection highlights how disruption can directly contribute to relapse. Once someone begins to rely on opioids, the sleep deficiency side effect enables their desire to continue opioid use. While those with a history of OUD are at higher risk of addiction, opioid use is not confined to those with prior addiction.
Sleep deprivation may be normalized in a culture that values constant work productivity. However, this doesn’t erase the fact that it reshapes the body and mind. Opioid use disorder remains a serious risk -– one that can emerge when chronic sleep loss quietly weakens judgment and self-control.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.
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