Even occasional sleeping problems can make daily life feel more stressful or cause you to be less productive. In the NSF survey, those who said they had trouble getting enough sleep reported a greater difficulty concentrating, accomplishing required tasks and handling minor irritations. Overall, sleep loss has been found to impair the ability to perform tasks involving memory, learning, and logical reasoning. This may contribute to mistakes or unfulfilled potential at school or on the job and strained relationships at home. In fact, sleeplessness has been found to be a significant predictor of absenteeism.
Insufficient sleep can also be extremely dangerous, leading to serious or even fatal accidents.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated more than 100,000 auto crashes annually may be fatigue related. These drowsy driving crashes cause an estimated 1,500 deaths and tens of thousands of injuries and lasting disabilities. This problem has been found to affect drivers aged 25 or under more than any other age group. Sleep needs vary. In general, most healthy adults need an average of eight hours of sleep a night.