A huge amount of studies have shown that numerous health problems begin occurring when someone gets 6 or less hours of sleep per night on average.

With chronic sleep deprivation, the risk of disease and premature death increase as do the occurrence of obesity and many other health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, depression, and high blood pressure.

The effects only worsen the lower the amount of sleep drops.

This is true for both men and women. As an example, in the Nurses’ Health Study, over 71,000 female health professionals were followed for their risk of coronary heart disease as it related to their sleep duration. Even after adjusting for multiple factors, including weight and smoking, the women who slept six hours or less nightly had a higher risk of coronary heart disease.

Other studies have shown that men who don’t sleep well are up to twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as those who do sleep well.