Sleep is needed to help the body regenerate and this means one of your most vital organs, the brain. It needs sleep so that it can restore itself to continue to perform at optimum levels. Sleep deprivation can affect your judgment like alcohol does while driving.

After long periods of wakefulness or reduced sleep, neurons in the brain will begin to misfire and this can visible affect a persons behavior. It will also affect a persons overall health. Sleep loss temporarily impairs vigilance and sustained attention.

With decreased sleep, higher order cognitive tasks are more difficult to perform. Tests that require both accuracy and speed become difficult, whereas speed slows and accuracy is challenged to a limit. Everything the person with sleep deprivation tries to accomplish is disproportionate to what they normally can complete. The inability to concentrate may be because people are using some of their brains recourses to fight of the urge to sleep.

As well as weakening your thought patterns and ability to think and function clearly, sleep deprivation may hinder your body's ability to fight of diseases and infections.
According to a recent survey, diabetes, obesity, cancer and heart disease have all been linked to sleep deprivation. This is relatively scary news considering that there are now approximately 3.5 million Americans who suffer from insomnia.

Researchers have found that even mild insomnia can have a lasting affect on obesity because it disrupts the hormones leptin and ghrelin that help to regulate your appetite. Sleep deprivation may also increase the substances in the blood system that indicates inflammation of areas of the colon which can lead to colon cancer, also breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

Sleep disorders maybe cause for alarm because they could be a 'red flag' for more serious health issues that could cause death. A recent survey by Harvard Medical School, of over 82,000 nurses, found an increase in death among those who slept less than six hours a night/day. This is a result of the immune system being damaged without enough sleep. White blood cells in the body decrease in numbers as does the activity of the left over white blood cells set to 'work' in the body. The amount of growth hormone is also severely decreased.

How can you avoid sleep deprivation? One way is sleeping pills, which is a $1.2 billion a year money making industry. Although, many people are turning away from the pharmaceuticals and taking a more natural approach to the cure of insomnia, by using herbal supplements and exercising.

One study conducted in June of 2008, by the Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, explored the impact of the smell of coffee rats had when they were sleep deprived. Their findings where that coffee smells counter act the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain. However, this study has not been proven on humans and would be beneficial with more research before trying it at home and driving a car or operating heavy machinery.