Have you ever felt groggy and increasingly irritable after only getting four or five hours of sleep? Did you feel like you couldn't focus on your work or even making breakfast? You will find that your sleep and mental health are closely related and sleep deprivation can negatively impact your mental health status.
In fact, research shows that chronic sleeping issues affect 50 to 80 percent of patients in an average psychiatric office. Sleep problems are common with a number of mental health conditions including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and depression.
Essentially, sleep is linked to your mental health because poor sleeping patterns can actually increase your risk for mental illnesses. There are neuroimaging studies that have shown that a good night of sleep can create emotional and mental resilience.
Along with your mood becoming more irritable and your mental health suffering, a lack of sleep can actually impact your reaction time negatively. One statistic claims that it only takes 19 hours without sleep before a person has a motor reaction time similar to someone who is legally drunk. Speed and accuracy on judgment-related tests are also impaired.
During sleep, your body temperature is reduced, your muscles begin to relax, and heart rate and breathing rate slow down. This stage of sleep is called "quiet" sleep where the body actually undergoes physiological changes to improve the strength of your immune system.
During the second part of sleep known as the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, people tend to dream. At this point, your body temperature goes back to the levels it experiences when it is awake. Your heart rate and breathing rate also rises to your former levels.
Research shows that REM sleep can actually help your mental/emotional health as well as improve memory and learning. In addition, scientists have found that, when a person is asleep, the brain can clear out substances that show up during the awake state.
During sleep, nerve cells get smaller and this makes it easier for the brain to refresh while leaving more room for semi-toxic substances to be removed from the body. Essentially, sleep reboots your brain.
Getting enough sleep is important for a wide range of reasons. For example, those who sleep well actually eat less calories when compared to people who are not well-rested. According to a number of studies, people who are sleep deprived tend to be hungrier and eat more calories. The research shows that poor sleep tends to negatively affect the hormones that regulate appetite.
In addition, adequate sleep can help you improve your concentration and productivity during the day because it affects your cognition, performance, and general brain function. Studies among children and adults have shown that getting enough sleep can improve memory and problem-solving skills.
Athletic performance also improves when someone gets plenty of sleep. Basketball players were found to improve their speed and accuracy as well as reaction times when they had more sleep, according to one study.
Lastly, the immune system is positively affected by a strong sleep cycle. Any loss of sleep can harm immune function. For example, in a two-week study, researchers looked at how the common cold can develop once they administered the virus to the participants. It was discovered that individuals with fewer than seven hours of sleep had a three times higher chance for getting sick from a cold when compared to people who had eight or more hours of sleep.
There are countless ways how adequate sleep can help your body and mind function effectively, so be sure to get your full eight hours. Sweet dreams!