Chronic sleep loss can cause health problems, such as gain, blood pressure, and a decrease in the immune system’s power. In addition, losing sleep can affect your memory, mood, and cardiovascular health (“Harvard Women’s Health Watch,” 2006).

Malaise is characterized as an “indefinite feeling of debility, lack of health, physical discomfort or uneasiness, usually accompanied by lack of energy that is often indicative of or accompanying the onset of a physical or mental illness” (University of Illinois, 2006). Lack of sleep and sleep disorders are among the many causes of malaise. Untreated malaise can affect a person’s ability to function on a daily basis and even lead to death.

Sleep disorders need to be diagnosed and treated by a healthcare professional. However, there are ways to prevent sleep disorders: routine sleep habits, a quiet sleep environment, and regular exercise.

Please see the following resources for more information:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/importance_of_sleep_and_health
http://uimc.discoveryhospital.com/main.php?id=960
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001803

The easiest way to avoiding all mentla ailemnts like mood swings, depression etct is to take as much sleep as possible. If not, at least 8 hours sleep is more than just essential for all age group people. So, take your beauty sleep or power nap and say goodbye to diseases forever.
http://www.healthkosh.com/health/sleep/articles/

Lack of sleep is not a trivial matter, if people consistently get less than seven hours sleep a night it can double their risk of them dying. Lack of sleep is definitely a health risk and where possible it is a good idea to make sure you get you seven hours a night in regularly.

If your normal amount of sleep per night is between five and six hours or less a joint study by a joint British and American group found that they had a 1.7 fold increase in mortality and more than doubled their chance of cardiovascular problems resulting in death.

Many Sleep studies confirm that seven hours sleep per night is optimal for a persons health.

Teenagers today are often not getting enough sleep because of the late nights they spend on their PC’s and i-pods into the early mornings. Youth alone will not protect you from the consequences of not enough sleep.

Not getting enough sleep seems to affect the body’s ability to work at its best.

One thing that really surprised me was the link between weight gain and lack of sleep. I saw in one article that a sleep specialist said ‘In fact, women who sleep five or fewer hours a night are one third more likely to gain 33 pounds over the next 16 years than those who get seven hours of slumber,’ the American Journal of Epidemiology.’

Get the right sleep and it helps increase your body’s ability to ward off weight gain cancer, heart disease, fend off flu and other infectious diseases and improve your memory and brain function.

So it seems that the immediate effects of drowsiness and irritability are the least of our worries. Lack of sleep is in short a major problem when it comes to our health. Getting enough sleep on a regular basis seems to be almost a magic cure all that helps ward off most of the things that ail us.

Sleep is one of the basic human needs. It is necessary to keep us alive and to give us energy to keep going every day. There are many reasons why we need to sleep. It is our body’s way of rejuvenating and refueling our body and mind. Sleep is important because it provides us with the energy to be alert and to be energetic for the next day.

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Sleep deprivation can be dangerous. Not getting enough sleep makes feel irritable, lose patience and to get angry while driving. Most of the accidents that occur across globe are due to improper sleep. Feeling sleepy during the daytime reduces the efficiency at work. This results in loss of millions of rupees around the world. Studies show that lack of sleep leads to problems completing a task, concentrating, making decisions and unsafe actions. Recent research suggests that sleep deprivation impacts on aging and diabetes.
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For an average adult, it is recommended to have at least 6 hours of undisturbed sleep at night. There are several ways to address sleeping disorders. This includes setting a regular sleep schedule, staying away from noisy environment, staying in a comfortable room, and sleeping in a comfortable bed and relaxing bedroom.

Source: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-24-2004-58321.asp

There is a natural rhythm in the body called the circadian rhythm. If it is disrupted, general health and well being is affected.