How Can Sleepless Nights Lead to Mental Health Issues?

If you’ve ever been around a toddler who has missed his nap, you know how crucial sleep can be to mood, emotional regulation, and behavior. Adults and children alike are significantly impacted both positively and negatively by sleep. Good sleep hygiene is a critical component to not only physical health but our emotional health as well. Lack of sleep and sleepless nights can contribute to significant mental health issues.

What does having a sleep problem look like?

Sleep serves many important functions in our lives. While we are asleep, our bodies work to maintain healthy brain function and our physical health and growing our bodies if we are children or young adults. Getting restful sleep is essential for our physical and mental performance the next day, as well as for our growth, health, and development over time.

There are over 70 different types of sleep disorders, with the most common ones being insomnia, sleep apnea, movement syndromes, and narcolepsy. Insomnia refers to having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Sleep apnea is abnormal breathing that causes many awakenings throughout the night. Movement syndromes are uncomfortable body sensations that cause fidgeting while sleeping (which often disrupts sleep). And lastly, narcolepsy is a disorder that causes severe sleepiness and falling asleep, sometimes abruptly, during the day.

Consequences of sleepless nights

Poor sleep can have short-term and long-term physical and mental health consequences. These consequences can range from mild to severe and some can even be irreversible.

Consequences of sleep deficiency can include:

• High blood pressure
• Kidney disease
• Diabetes
• Stroke
• Obesity
• Hormone changes
• Vulnerability to your immune system
• Decreased fertility

How many Americans suffer from sleep problems?

If you are one of the many people struggling with getting adequate sleep, you are not alone. You may even be unsure how much sleep is actually appropriate for someone your age. A good rule of thumb, generally speaking, is that the younger your age, the more sleep you require.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, school-age children between six to 12 years of age should get nine to 12 hours of sleep a night, teenagers should get eight to 10 hours of sleep a night, and adults need roughly seven to nine hours of sleep a night.

More than a third of Americans are not getting enough sleep on a chronic basis. Additional statistics from a 2014 survey showed that:

• Married people were more likely to report receiving adequate sleep at 67%, compared to the 62% of unmarried, widowed, divorced, or separated counterparts.
• Unemployed people reported a lower healthy sleep duration than people who were employed.
• Healthy sleep duration was lowest among Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders and highest among non-Hispanic white people.
• People living in the southeast region of the U.S. around the Appalachian Mountains reported receiving less sleep than other regions.
• Healthy sleep duration varied across the U.S., with 72% of people reporting healthy sleep duration in South Dakota and 56% in Hawaii.

How does insomnia and mental health connect?

Mental health and sleep are very closely linked. They are so closely connected that sleep deprivation can contribute to the development of mental health issues, and mental health issues can contribute to sleep problems. Anywhere between 50% and 80% of people in a mental health practice report chronic sleep problems, compared to 10%-18% of the general population in the United States. Historically, sleep issues have been classified as symptoms of mental health disorders. While that is true, research shows that sleep problems can directly contribute to the acquisition of some mental health disorders.

Sleep problems are common in many mental health disorders. Some of these disorders include anxiety, depression, ADHD, and bipolar disorder. Research shows that:

• Between 65%-90% of adults with depression experience some kind of sleep problem, the most common being insomnia.
• 90% of children with major depression experience a sleep problem.
• Those who reported insomnia can be up to four times more likely to also develop major depression within three years.
• Sleep problems can be a predictor of developing major depression later on in life.
• Sleep problems, including insomnia, usually increase right before an episode of mania or depression in people with bipolar disorder.
• In adults with anxiety disorders, sleep problems affect more than 50% of the population.
• Children with anxiety disorders tend to take longer to fall asleep and sleep less deeply than children without an anxiety disorder.
• Insomnia can be a risk factor for developing both major depression and anxiety disorders.
• In children with ADHD, sleep problems affect 25%-50% of the population.

Sleep problems can make us more vulnerable to experiencing negative emotions. Neurochemistry evaluations show that inadequate sleep makes us more prone to negative thinking and negative emotional experiences, while healthy sleep makes us more emotionally and mentally resilient. For those who have mental health disorders, getting adequate sleep may be more difficult because of the symptoms associated with those disorders, such as racing thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and excessive worrying. There is an interplay between sleep and mental health disorders, and they can strongly impact one another.

Treatment for sleep problems

Because of the interplay between them, addressing and treating sleep problems can help improve and alleviate symptoms of mental health disorders. There are many simple yet effective ways to treat sleep problems. Lifestyle and dietary changes such as exercising regularly, limiting caffeine, nicotine, and other substances, especially in the evening, maintaining a bedtime routine, using the bedroom for sleep and intercourse only, avoiding naps, limiting screen time and technology before bedtime, and going to bed around the same time every night can help improve quality and length of sleep.

Some important facts to consider are:

• Nicotine is a stimulant that speeds up the heart rate and can make it difficult for you to fall asleep.
• Alcohol is a depressant and can help with falling asleep initially; however, after the alcohol leaves the body, people often wake up prematurely.
• Consistent aerobic activity can help you fall asleep faster, wake up less frequently in the middle of the night, and spend more time in a deep sleep.
• Many sleep experts believe that insomnia is a learned behavior so that it can be unlearned.
• Meditation, relaxation techniques, and deep breathing can help slow the heart rate down and help you fall asleep faster.

Other treatments for sleep problems

There are therapeutic treatments available, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), that involve therapy from a clinician who specializes in insomnia. Medical devices such as a sleep apnea machine can also be a treatment option if you suffer from sleep apnea. Medication or over-the-counter aids may also be an option. If you require therapeutic or medical interventions such as the ones listed above, talk to your doctor to see what options are available to you. You don’t have to let poor sleep negatively impact your quality of life.