The Impact of Sleep: Sleep and Mental Health and Benefits

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Sleep and mental health are closely linked – living with a mental health condition can affect your sleep, and poor sleep can affect your mental health.

First, we understand what sleep is then we delve into the connection with your mental health and much more.

Understanding Sleep

Sleep is a biological process that involves an altered state of consciousness where the brain is active but the body is relatively still and quiet. It’s a complex process that helps people stay healthy, process new information, and re-energize. Sleep is essential for your health. It refreshes the mind and repairs the body.

Getting a good night’s sleep is incredibly important for your health. In fact, it’s just as important as eating a balanced, nutritious diet and exercising. The optimal amount of sleep depends on your age, but generally, adults should get 7–9 hours of sleep per night:

Age	Recommended sleep
Adults	7–9 hours
Children	Varies by age, from 10–13 hours for 3–5 year olds to 8–10 hours for 13–18 year olds
Infants	14–17 hours for 0–3 months, 12–15 hours for 4–11 months
Older adults	7–8 hours for 65 and older

Sleep and Mental health

Sleep can increase the risk of mental health disorders. Sleep helps the brain function properly, and a good night’s sleep can improve learning, problem-solving, and creativity. In contrast, sleep deficiency can make it difficult to concentrate, make decisions, and control emotions. It can also lead to irritability, fatigue, and mood changes. Improving sleep quality can lead to better mental health.

Here are some ways that sleep and mental health are related:

• Sleep and mental health disorders: Sleep problems can contribute to the onset and worsening of mental health disorders like depression and anxiety. People with mental health disorders are also more likely to have chronic sleep problems.
• Sleep and suicide: Sleep deficiency has been linked to suicide.
• Sleep and risk-taking behavior: Sleep deficiency has been linked to risk-taking behavior.
• Sleep and other health conditions: Lack of sleep can also increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, premature aging, and road accident deaths.

Benefits of sleep

• Improves brain function: Sleep helps your brain develop new learning and memory pathways, as well as enhances your concentration and response time. Sleep also helps to eliminate toxins that accumulate in your brain while you are awake.
• Sleep helps your immune system detect and destroy foreign invaders, like the common cold.
• May help you maintain or lose weight: Sleep can help you maintain a healthy weight, improve your heart health, and lower your risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and stroke.
• Sleep has been shown to enhance athletic performance.
• Improves your mental health: Sleep can help you reduce stress, improve your mood, and get along better with people. Sleep deficiency can lead to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior. Mental health concerns, such as depression, are strongly linked to poor sleep quality and sleeping disorders.
• Sleep can help decrease inflammation, which can damage structures and increase your risk of health conditions like ulcers, dementia, and heart disease.

What is responsible for sleep?

What exactly is responsible for making me sleep. Here there are:

Melatonin:

• Melatonin levels in the body naturally rise after nightfall, making you feel drowsy. Melatonin levels fluctuate throughout the sleep/wake cycle, reflecting circadian rhythms. During sleep, the hypothalamus regulates body temperature and blood pressure. The pineal gland in the brain produces melatonin, a hormone that makes you feel sleepy. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus controls the body’s internal clock, which responds to light and dark cues. When it’s dark, the SCN signals the pineal gland to release melatonin.

Sleep drive:

• Your body craves sleep, similar to how it craves food. Throughout the day, your desire for sleep builds, and when it reaches a certain point, you need to sleep -The level of adenosine in your brain increases while you’re awake, signaling a need for sleep. A major difference between sleep and hunger: Your body can’t force you to eat when you’re hungry, but when you’re tired, it can put you to sleep, even if you’re in a meeting or behind the wheel of a car. When you’re exhausted, your body is even able to engage in microsleep episodes of one or two seconds while your eyes are open. Napping for more than 30 minutes later in the day can throw off your night’s sleep by decreasing your body’s sleep drive.

Circadian rhythms:

• Your body’s biological clock, located in the brain, controls circadian rhythms. One important function of this clock is to respond to light cues, increasing production of the hormone melatonin at night and then turning it off when it detects light. People who are completely blind frequently have difficulty sleeping because they are unable to notice and respond to these light cues.

Autonomic nervous system:

• This system regulates vital functions like heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure. During NREM sleep, the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is active, which helps to decrease heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure.

Restorative theory:

• This theory suggests that sleep allows cells to repair and regrow. During sleep, the body engages in processes like muscle repair, protein synthesis, and tissue growth.

Sleep disorders/problems

You spend about one-third of your life sleeping, but it’s still something many struggle with.

Insomnia is a sleep disorder characterized by ongoing difficulties with falling to sleep and/or staying asleep or getting quality sleep. Anxiety and worrying, such as worrying about not getting enough sleep, may contribute to insomnia.

Insomnia affects approximately 10% of the world’s population and is considered a medical condition. It is rarely harmful, and there are numerous treatment options available, including drugs and mental health options/services.

Other examples of sleep problems/disorders include:

• Sleep apnea: A breathing disorder that causes you to stop breathing for at least 10 seconds while sleeping.
• Parasomnias: A sleep disorder that causes you to act in unusual ways while sleeping, such as walking, talking, or eating
• Nightmares: Can be triggered by stressful events, illness, fever, or some medications or alcohol
• Night terrors: Most common in pre-school children, but can also affect adults who are experiencing emotional or psychological problems
• Narcolepsy: Narcolepsy might cause you to fall asleep unexpectedly at unsuitable times. It is caused by the brain’s inability to control your sleep and wake timings. If you have narcolepsy, you may feel excessively tired throughout the day and fall asleep suddenly and unexpectedly.
• Non-24-hour sleep wake disorder: A circadian rhythm disorder that causes sleep and wake times to shift one to two hours earlier or later each day. It primarily affects people who are blind.
• Restless leg syndrome: A tingling or prickly sensation in your legs that makes you want to move them.

More examples:

• Delayed sleep phase syndrome,
• Snoring
• REM sleep behavior disorder,
• Shift work sleep disorder,
• Hypersomnia
• Delayed sleep phase
• Bruxism (teeth grinding),
• Jet lag disorder.

Sleep problems can be caused by a number of factors, including:

• Medical conditions
• Mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, or cognitive disorders
• Lack of sleep or poor quality sleep
• Too much sleep
• Allergies and respiratory problems
• Frequent urination
• Chronic pain

What is sleep hygiene?

Hygiene also applies to sleep – Sleep hygiene’ refers to healthy habits, behavior’s and environmental factors that can be adjusted to help you have a good night’s sleep. Some sleeping problems are often caused by bad sleep habits reinforced over years or even decades.

Here’s how to practice good sleep hygiene:

Relax before bed:

• Set aside time to wind down before bed, and try reading, listening to music, or meditating.

Obey your body clock:

• Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, including weekends. Don’t ignore tiredness. Go to bed when your body tells you it’s ready. Don’t go to bed if you don’t feel tired. You will only reinforce bad habits such as lying awake. Get enough early morning sunshine. Exposure to light during early waking hours helps to set your body clock.

Create a sleep inducing environment:

• Invest in a mattress and pillow that is comfortable and provides you with the correct level of support. Make sure your bedroom is comfortable as possible. Ensure your room is dark enough. An eye mask may be helpful if you are a shift worker and need to sleep during the day. Use your bedroom only for sleeping and intimacy. If you treat your bed like a second lounge room – for watching television or talking to friends on the phone, for example – your mind will associate your bedroom with activity. If you can’t control noise (such as barking dogs or loud neighbors’), buy a pair of earplugs. For most people a comfortable or favorable room temperature is between 17 to 19°C; so, if you can, adjust/control the temperature in your room.

Exercise:

• You might roll your eyes at this option; but trust me, it will give you a better sleep experience .Try to get moderate exercise into your daily routine- try going on long soothing walks/strolls in the evening to unwind before bed.

Adjust your naps:

• Keep naps short and limit them to the early afternoon. Don’t be like me who over naps and complains he following morning of getting little to no sleep at all. Set an alarm or tell someone to wake you up at an earlier time.

Adjust your diet:

• Avoid eating a large meal right before bed, and limit liquids before bed – To avoid the feeling of overfeeding and waking up to pee at night causing sleep disruptions.

Avoid stimulants:

• Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol before bed. Caffeine can take up to six hours to wear off. Alcohol can make you feel drowsy, but it can also disrupt your sleep. Many smokers claim that cigarettes help them relax, yet nicotine is a stimulant. Avoid sleeping pills too; Sleeping medications have a number of downsides, including daytime sleepiness, failure to address the underlying reasons of sleeping issues, and the ‘rebound’ effect, which makes falling asleep without them more difficult. These medications should only be used as a last option and with strict medical supervision.

Avoid electronics:

• Limit screen time before bed, and set your devices to night mode after sunset. This cannot be over stated.

Try not to engage in mentally stimulating activities close to bedtime:

• Use the last hour or so before sleep to relax your mind. Some things that you might find relaxing include having a warm bath, reading quietly, or having a warm milky drink, since milk contains a sleep-enhancing amino acid.

Turn your alarm clock to the wall. Watching the minutes tick by is a sure way to keep yourself awake.

• If you can’t fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time, get out of bed and do something else for half an hour or so, such as reading a book, and then try to go back to bed again.
• If you have tried and failed to improve your sleep, you may like to consider professional help. See your doctor for information and referral.

Stages of sleep

Did you know there are stages of sleep? If you said yes, then I am envious of your knowledge – I had no idea such existed.

Sleeping doesn’t mean your brain is totally inactive. Throughout your time asleep, your brain will cycle repeatedly through two different types of sleep: REM (rapid-eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep (NREM):

The first part of the cycle is non-REM sleep, which is composed of four stages. The first stage comes between being awake and falling asleep. The second is light sleep, when heart rate and breathing regulate and body temperature drops. The third and fourth stages are deep sleep. Though REM sleep was previously believed to be the most important sleep phase for learning and memory, newer data suggests that non-REM sleep is more important for these tasks, as well as being the more restful and restorative phase of sleep.

As you cycle into REM sleep, the eyes move rapidly behind closed lids, and brain waves are similar to those during wakefulness. Breath rate increases and the body becomes temporarily paralyzed as we dream.

The cycle then repeats itself, but with each cycle you spend less time in the deeper stages three and four of sleep and more time in REM sleep. On a typical night, you’ll cycle through four or five times.

More detailed explanation(which I believe is a fun read):

There are three NREM stages. When you fall asleep, you typically enter NREM stage 1 and then cycle between NREM stages 2 and 3. After that, you go into REM sleep and start dreaming. After the first REM cycle, you start a new sleep cycle and go back into stage 1 or 2, and the cycle starts over.

One cycle normally takes about 90 to 120 minutes before another begins. Most people go through four or five cycles per night (assuming they get a full eight hours of sleep).

Stage 1 NREM sleep:

• Is the lightest stage of sleep. You enter stage 1 right after you fall asleep. This stage usually lasts only a few minutes, making up about 5% of your sleep time. After that, your sleep gets deeper, and you move into stage 2 NREM sleep.

Stage 2 NREM sleep:

• Stage 2 is still light sleep, but deeper than stage 1. During this stage, your brain waves slow down and have noticeable pauses between short, powerful bursts of electrical activity. Experts think those bursts are your brain organizing memories and information from the time you spent awake. Stage 2 NREM sleep accounts for about 45% of your time asleep (the most of any stage). You’ll go through multiple rounds of stage 2 NREM sleep, and usually, each one is longer than the last. After stage 2, you move deeper into stage 3 NREM sleep or enter REM sleep.

Stage 3 NREM sleep:

The deepest stage of NREM sleep is stage 3. It makes up about 25% of your total sleep time in adults. But babies and children need more stage 3 sleep, and the older you get, the less you need.

In stage 3, your brain waves are slow but strong. Your body takes advantage of this very deep sleep stage to repair injuries and reinforce your immune system. The same bursts of brain activity that happen in stage 2 can also happen in stage 3, and brain waves specific to stage 3 help regulate those bursts.

You need stage 3 NREM sleep to wake up feeling rested. Without enough stage 3 sleep, you feel tired and drained even if you slept for a long time. That’s why your body automatically tries to get as much stage 3 sleep into your sleeping period as early as possible. After stage 3 NREM sleep, your body moves into stage 2 NREM, which is the gatekeeper of REM sleep.

Because stage 3 NREM sleep is so deep, it’s hard to wake someone up from it. If they do wake up, they’ll probably have “sleep inertia,” a state of confusion or “mental fog.” Sleep inertia lasts about 30 minutes.

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep

• Is the stage of sleep during which most dreams occur. Its name derives from the way your eyes move under your eyelids as you sleep. During REM sleep, your brain activity is extremely similar to when you are awake.
• REM sleep accounts for around 25% of your whole time asleep. Your first REM cycle in a sleep period is usually the shortest, lasting roughly 10 minutes. Each one that follows is up to an hour longer than the one before it.