The Physical Effects of War

By now, this has become a daily challenge: how many hours of sleep can one get in a night riddled with air-raid alerts, racing to shelter and attempts at shuteye before being woken up again. And not just how many hours in total, but also how long one can sleep uninterrupted. All this comes before the real challenge – staying awake during the day, functioning as normally as possible and perhaps even forgetting – until the next siren – that this is an open-ended state of emergency.

This reality has direct and indirect health implications, some immediate and clearly felt in the ability to function and in planning and concentration. In the longer run, this stressful reality, marked by constant alertness and sleep deprivation, could have a cumulative effect on other bodily systems, including the immune and cardiovascular systems, as well as mental health.

“The professional term for what has been happening now is ‘sleep deprivation’ due to air-raid alerts,” says Prof. Yaron Dagan. “This deprivation harms two main things: one is cognitive – that is to say, everything related to thinking, perception, problem-solving, concentration and memory; the other is emotional – people are gloomier, less patient, and generally in a worse mood, which sometimes results in reckless decision-making.”

Prof. Giora Pillar is head of the sleep clinic in Clalit Health Services’ Haifa District and a sleep researcher in the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.