Health Effects of Poor Sleep:  Lack of sleep can have a negative impact on your physical and mental health, therefore experts say that people of all ages should take adequate sleep. Recent research has discovered four sleeping patterns and explained how they affect a person's health. According to a study published last month in Psychosomatic Medicine, people with dementia are much more likely to develop chronic diseases.

Researchers at Penn State University analyzed data from 3,700 people, studying their sleep habits and chronic health conditions at two points in time, 10 years apart. The research team identified four different sleep patterns, including good sleepers, weekend sleepers, insomniacs and nappers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends adults get at least seven hours of rest a night, but it seems many people don't get that much sleep. More than half of the research participants were identified as insomniacs and nappers. Both these sleeping patterns are not considered good. People who suffered from insomnia for 10 years also had many complaints of heart disease, diabetes, depression and physical weakness. People who took frequent naps during the day had increased risk of diabetes, cancer and weakness.

Researchers said that people with less education and unemployed were more likely to complain of insomnia, while older people, adults and retired people were more likely to have napping sleeping patterns.

Head of research Sumi Lee says, 'These results can show that it is very difficult to change our sleeping habits because the correct sleeping health depends on the overall lifestyle. This may also show that people are still not aware of the importance of their sleep and the effects of lack of sleep.

Sumi Lee said, 'More efforts need to be made to tell people about good sleep. To get good sleep, practices like not using cell phone in bed, exercising daily and not consuming caffeine in the evening are needed.