When you don't get enough sleep, you may feel less alert, less energetic and maybe even more confused, irritable and fatigued. Lack of sleep affects not only your energy level but also your mental and social functioning. You may find it more difficult to concentrate; or find that you lose patience quickly, become less interactive in your relationships and that you are less productive at work and more prone to accidents. Each night that you do not get enough sleep makes the next day worse. All these effects on the body are not only from lack of sleep, but also from lack of dreaming.

Waking up during the night may not be the problem? You need sleep just as much as you need air, water and food. But your sleep/dream cycle also makes you wake up during the night.

As you go through the stages of sleep, it is normal to be awake for short periods during the night. In fact, you should expect to wake up at least four times during the night because the various stages of sleep occur in 90-minute cycles all through the night (you can test this by checking the clock before you go to sleep at night, and again when you wake up during the middle of the night.)

This means that if you sleep for six hours a night, you will have four