The Importance of Sleep

What is sleep?

Sleep is a universal human phenomenon that affects every single individual regardless of whether they sleep or not. On average we spend about one-third of our lives sleeping.¹

It has been suggested that sleep is an evolutionary process that allowed humans to not only avoid predators, save energy, and limit the need to adapt between daylight and darkness,² it also meant that the biological requirements of rest were met. ^{2, 3}

Sleep and Physical Health

These biological functions include increasing an individuals immune system, reducing caloric use, restoring brain energy stores and waking-induced performance degradation, as well as serving as a connectivity function⁴ (e.g., consolidating new knowledge and skills). Anyone that has suffered sleep disturbance can probably relate to this, you might feel run down and come down with a cold or other illness, you feel sluggish and perform your usual tasks slower, you might feel like you have “brain fog” and concentrating and learning new stuff might be difficult, while your memory becomes worst. In other words, a lack of sleep really affects your body’s ability to function. It also has long-term adverse physical health effects like increasing your risk of developing heart problems, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity ^{5, 6, 7}

How does sleep affect your mental health?

Sleep and Mental Health

Apart from the aforementioned “brain fog” you might feel more irritable and become annoyed or angry at things that might have not bothered you before. The low energy and sluggishness you feel might be a precursor to a having a low mood; “geez everything is so much harder, I really am having a bad day”….

However frequent disturbed sleep may have greater consequences than simply feeling like you are having a bad day.

While historically disturbed sleep has been seen as a symptom of many mental health disorders, an alternative perspective views sleep issues being a potential causal factor.⁸ For example sleep disturbance has long been considered a symptom of depression; but recent research suggests that lack of sleep can be a risk factor for developing depression and might actually be a predictive symptom for the disorders onset.^{9, 10} If disturbed sleep has such significant ramifications regarding mental health; it suggests we should pay more attention to it and give it the importance it needs. This means first identifying and then acknowledging when we have issues with sleeping.

Sleep disturbance can be brought on by a number of things with the most well-known being insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea. Insomnia is the most common sleep disturbance and is the inability to fall or stay asleep. Anxiety is a common feature of insomnia and up to 36% of individuals with insomnia also have an anxiety disorder.¹¹ Additionally up to 75% of individuals with depression also have insomnia.¹² However, a number of other life stressors can also impact quality sleep including technology (e.g., screen time), socioeconomic factors (e.g., money or housing issues), work issues, relationship issues, weight issues (i.e., being overweight), and substance use to name a few.

How can we help?

J. B Therapy can help individuals with their sleeping issues. There are a number of strategies and techniques that can be implemented that can not only induce sleep easier but also produce more restful sleep. Sleep is an essential activity we all undertake on a daily basis within our lives, it is important that we all get the best sleep possible, both our physical and mental health depend on it.



References

1. Baglioni, C., Nanovska, S., Regen, W., Spiegelhalder, K., Feige, B., Nissen, C., Reynolds, C. F., & Riemann, D. (2016). Sleep and Mental Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Polysomnographic Research. Psychological Bulletin, 142(9), 969–990. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000053

2. Nunn, C. L., Samson, D. R., & Krystal, A. D. (2016). Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 2016(1), 227–243. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eow018

3. Freiberg, A. S. (2020). Why We Sleep: A Hypothesis for an Ultimate or Evolutionary Origin for Sleep and Other Physiological Rhythms. Journal of Circadian Rhythms, 18(1), 2–2. https://doi.org/10.5334/jcr.189

4. Krueger, J. M., Frank, M. G., Wisor, J. P., & Roy, S. (2016). Sleep function: Toward elucidating an enigma. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 28, 46–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2015.08.005

5. Andrea M. Spaeth, A. M. (2019). Insufficient sleep and obesity. In M. Grandner., & M. Tan. (Eds.), Sleep and health (pp.189-201). Academic Press.

6. Javaheri, S., Omobomi, O., & Redline, S. (2019). Insufficient sleep and cardiovascular disease risk. In M. Grandner., & M. Tan. (Eds.), Sleep and health (pp.203-212). Academic Press.

7. Seixas, A. A., Robbins, R., Chung, A., Popp, C., Donley, T., McFarlane, S. I., Jesse Moore, J., & Girardin J. L. (2019). Sleep health and diabetes: The role of sleep duration, subjective sleep, sleep disorders, and circadian rhythms on diabetes. In Grandner, M., Tan, Miranda, & Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. (2019). Sleep and health (pp.213-225). Academic Press.

8. Freeman, D., Sheaves, B., Goodwin, G. M., Yu, L.-M., Nickless, A., Harrison, P. J., Emsley, R., Luik, A. I., Foster, R. G., Wadekar, V., Hinds, C., Gumley, A., Jones, R., Lightman, S., Jones, S., Bentall, R., Kinderman, P., Rowse, G., Brugha, T., … Espie, C. A. (2017). The effects of improving sleep on mental health (OASIS): A randomised controlled trial with mediation analysis. The Lancet. Psychiatry, 4(10), 749–758. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30328-0

9. Fang, H., Tu, S., Sheng, J., & Shao, A. (2019). Depression in sleep disturbance: A review on a bidirectional relationship, mechanisms and treatment. Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, 23(4), 2324–2332. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcmm.14170

10. Pandi-Perumal, S. R., Monti, J. M., Burman, D., Karthikeyan, R., BaHammam, A. S., Spence, D. W., Brown, G. M., & Narashimhan, M. (2020). Clarifying the role of sleep in depression: A narrative review. Psychiatry Research, 291, 113239–113239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113239

11. Staner, L. (2003). Sleep and anxiety disorders. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 5(3), 249–258. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2003.5.3/lstaner

12. Nutt, D., Wilson, S., & Paterson, L. (2008). Sleep disorders as core symptoms of depression. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 10(3), 329–336. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2008.10.3/dnutt