For teenagers today, it is common to start and finish a TV show within a time frame of a few days.

Binge watching is something that has become normal in society.

People will sit on the couch for hours on end with bowls of snacks and no breaks for the sole reason of watching a TV show.

This is obviously not good for the human body, but not all of the health effects are obvious.

Sleep deprivation and antisocial behaviors are both habits that are expected.

However, depression, heart attacks and even serious addiction symptoms are also commonly found among binge watchers.

By definition, binge watching is watching 2 to 6 episodes at one time.

However, with a cliffhanger at the end of one episode, it is very easy to slip into the next episode.

This is especially the case when Netflix gives only a few seconds before the next episode starts.

These cliffhangers can trick the human brain into a sense of excitement and a small amount of adrenaline that will make you stay up longer.

As the hours of sleep loss build up, the health effects build up as well.

With the loss of sleep, there is a common increase in mistakes being made.

Mistakes are commonly from the decreased amount of thought put into the decision making process and planning which are other side effects of sleep deprivation.

These mistakes can result in an increase in stress, anxiety and depression.

As smaller effects build up, there are larger and more dangerous ones that can come.

According to www.rd.com, diseases such as cancer, stroke and diabetes can become more common in people who live a sedentary lifestyle such as binge watching.

“Adults who watched more than three hours of TV a day doubled their risk of premature death compared to those who watched less,” researchers said in a recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Many people do not realize that binge watching, when taken to the extreme, is considered to be an addiction.

According to www.mentalhealth.net, addiction is doing something far more than planned, neglecting other activities and repeated involvement with something despite the harm it causes.

There are many people that do not plan to stay up until 3 a.m. watching TV instead of doing work, but, still, they do it anyways, and do the same thing again the very next day.

To keep yourself from suffering from sleep deprivation, give yourself a limit- no matter the ending, and stop watching TV one hour before you plan on going to bed.

Tips for being as healthy as possible while watching TV are: move around in between or during episodes, don’t snack on junk food and only watch a few episodes at a time.

As a fellow binge watcher, this is going to be difficult, but not finishing an entire season in three days is a small price to pay compared to the potential harm.