Research

Hormonal

One night of total sleep deprivation increases resting blood pressure in healthy adults without increasing heart rate or muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA).

Getting one night of zero sleep will likely raise your blood pressure the next morning, even if you don't feel stressed or your heart rate doesn't change. This suggests the mechanism isn't just 'stress nerves' firing, but potentially other vascular or hormonal factors. Prioritizing sleep is crucial for blood pressure management, not just for feeling rested.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In comparison with normal sleep, sleep deprivation resulted in an increase in blood pressure (normal sleep versus sleep deprivation 82±3 versus 86±2 mm Hg, mean±SEM, P=0.012) and a decrease in muscle sympathetic nerve activity (normal sleep versus sleep deprivation 28±2 versus 22±2 bursts/min, P=0.017).
Masahiko Kato et al. · Hypertension · 2000

Why this rating

Randomized, blinded, crossover design with direct neural measurements (MSNA), though sample size is small (n=8).

Source

Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Neural Circulatory Control

Masahiko Kato et al. · Hypertension · 2000

DOI 10.1161/01.hyp.35.5.1173

crossover · n=8Cited 345×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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