Why Sleep Is A Crucial Part of Mental Wellness
We all know first-hand what it feels like to have a night of bad sleep wreak havoc on our mental state the following day. Being cranky, unfocused, irritable and dare we say maybe even a little mean are all things that we generally acknowledge as normal consequences of not getting enough sleep. But what about the impact that sleep deprivation has on our mental health beyond just the next day or two?
It’s difficult to overstate how vital a good sleep routine is for our overall mental wellness - both in the short and long-term. And in this article, we’re going to share a few of the reasons why!
1. Sleep is when we process our memories and emotions
A growing body of research is showing that sleep plays a huge role in how we process the memories and emotions we’ve gathered throughout the day. While we’re sleeping, our brains can sort through and close a lot of those open tabs that we’ve used or left open during the day. It’s the time when everything gets transformed and encoded into specific memories and your emotions are consolidated into information that can be made sense of. In particular, our brains work through negative emotions like fear or stress.
Regularly getting poor sleep or too little sleep can therefore have a huge negative impact on our overall emotional health. It can affect our brain in ways that can lead to increased emotional reactivity, decreased empathic behavior, heightened fear conditioning and increased threat perception/generalization. Doesn’t sound too inviting, does it?
2. Lack of sleep disrupts our hormones
Did you know that nearly every hormone in your body is released based on your circadian rhythm (aka your wake-sleep cycle)? Yup, it’s true!
Our bodies ability to regulate estrogen, progesterone, our hunger hormones (like insulin, leptin, ghrelin), melatonin, our thyroid hormones and growth hormones are all closely linked to getting enough sleep. If we don’t, it will send us onto a roller coaster ride of dysregulation that can disrupt the physical, emotional and mental balance in our body.
One of the most important hormones that our sleep helps us regulate is cortisol, that pesky stress hormone that is responsible for sending our nervous system into flight or fight mode. While cortisol is great to help protect us if we’re in danger, too much of it can increase our heart rate, our breathing, make us feel threatened, stressed and anxious. And too little of it in the mornings when we need it can make us feel groggy and lethargic.
The way we produce and regulate cortisol very much mimics the cycle of our circadian rhythm. The hormone drops while we sleep and peaks shortly after we wake up to give us that boost of energy and alertness for the day.
If we don’t have a well-regulated sleeping routine, this process gets disrupted and our bodies produce more cortisol during the day. And more cortisol means higher stress levels which have been linked to a higher likelihood of developing various mood disorders such as anxiety and depression! Which brings us to #3!
3. Not getting enough sleep has been found to increase the likelihood of mental illness
Poor sleep has been acknowledged as a risk factor that can increase our likelihood of developing a wide variety of mental health issues.
One analysis of 21 research studies found that people with insomnia had a two-fold risk of developing depression compared to those with no sleep issues. Similarly, research has shown that insomnia and other sleep issues can increase the likelihood of developing bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, psychosis, borderline personality disorder and even increased likelihood of suicide.
4. Too little sleep can also make your pre-existing mental health symptoms worse
We’ve just established that poor sleep has been found to be a serious risk factor in the development of mental health issues. But aside from being a possible cause, sleep disturbances can often also be a core symptom of many mental health issues.
And what’s more, even when sleep isn’t the primary cause or symptom of our illness, not getting enough sleep will very likely make our symptoms worse or more difficult to cope with during the day.
A study conducted at Oxford University found that when given treatment for their insomnia, not only did their sleep improve but the participants saw significant improvements in their other mental health symptoms as well.
How to start improving our sleep
When we embark on our journey of self-healing, improving our sleep habits can often be a great place to start because it can help us regulate our emotions, improve our hormone balance (esp. cortisol) and improve some of the overall mental health symptoms we might be struggling with.
The first step in improving our sleep usually involves a variety of lifestyle and habit changes.
Some of these changes that we can implement on our own could be:
Developing a calming nighttime routine that includes things like reading, meditation and journaling
Avoiding any sort of stimulant before bedtime (coffee, alcohol, sodas, nicotine, etc.)
Limiting the time we spend on our devices before bedtime and wearing blue light glasses during the day if we spend a lot of time looking at screens
Limiting naps and “early evening snoozes” on the couch
Listening to sleep stories, meditations or other audio material to distract ourselves from thoughts and easily drift into sleep
Establishing and maintaining a regular sleep schedule with the same bedtime and wake up time every day
If you feel like you’ve tried everything and simple lifestyle changes just aren’t cutting it for you, then you might consider seeing a doctor or mental health professional to help treat your sleep problems. Therapy options like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) or Hypnotherapy are specifically developed to help with the treatment of sleep-related issues.
Hopefully, we’ve been able to convince you that sleep is such a huge part of a healthy mental wellness routine as well as a great tool to support us on our personal healing journey.
If you’re looking for more of this kind of support, we offer lots of resources for you to dive into this work in a safe, supportive way in The Self Care Space. We have everything from self-guided prompts and programs to guided meditations and healing visualizations to help you regulate your emotions, work through old trauma and hopefully also help you improve your sleep. We also have amazing advisory board members who specialize in a wide variety of areas and will be there to answer your questions in the private community or at our members-only live events.
xoxo,
The Self Care Space
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