What ailments are associated with lack of sleep?
There are very few physical effects from lack of sleep. If somebody is having problems with sleeping I always tell them to rest because virtually everything physical will sort itself out during rest. One comment that's been made in the past is that sleep is for the brain, it's mainly for the brain to recover one way or the other. So it's a separation between physical and what the brain needs mentally. If somebody has a lot of problems with sleep and is visiting their general practitioner a lot, then they're very much more likely, subsequent in the future, to develop depression or a mental disorder, so there's an indication of there things possibly going wrong. The other thing that can go wrong with not getting enough sleep, and it's just something that we've become aware of in the last couple of years, is that if people chronically restrict themselves of sleep it may have an impact on their appetite control hormones and the current obesity epidemic may be associated with getting less sleep as well. So although it's not a direct physical effect, we end up being up and around more and our appetite not being controlled means that we eat a lot more and end up putting on more weight.
