What if you had a way to protect your mind? A way to armour your mental health?
And what if it didn’t cost anything, and was available to you anywhere?
What is this mystery elixir?
Sleep.
You’re most likely aware of the many benefits of sleep. You know it’s important for your mental, emotional and physical health. You probably know it helps reduce the risk of chronic disease such as heart disease and stroke, and it can make it easier to manage mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Now, emerging research shows that sleep not only reduces the impact of the symptoms of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, but also protects against them.
Breaking the anxiety-insomnia cycle
When you’re anxious, it can be hard to sleep.
Yet lack of sleep can make anxiety worse. It becomes a vicious cycle. The same applies to depression and other mental health issues.
Why?
Researchers at University of California Berkeley did a series of studies to find out.
In one study, one group slept in a lab overnight while another group stayed awake. In the morning, both groups watched an emotional video and self-measured their anxiety. The group who stayed awake reported 30% higher anxiety than the well-rested group.
Interestingly, even those who slept but had disrupted sleep found their anxiety levels were raised.
Further investigation showed that prefrontal cortex activity diminished in the group who stayed awake. Among other things, your prefrontal cortex is where your brain manages emotion.
Lead researcher, Eti Ben Simon, says these findings suggest that sleep problems may not be just a symptom of anxiety but a reason it persists.
It’s possible that deep sleep resets the balance between the sympathetic nervous system (your stress response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (your calmer resting state). When you’re awake, your sympathetic nervous system is activated by stress and anxiety, and when you’re in deep sleep, your parasympathetic system comes into play.
Sleep: nature’s anti-inflammatory
Other recent research has found that a good night’s sleep can reduce brain inflammation.
Left unchecked, inflammation can contribute to chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.
Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh found that people with sleep problems such as difficulty falling asleep, restless sleep, or loud snoring have a higher risk for metabolic syndrome, another condition linked to chronic inflammation. On the flip side, they found that blood markers for inflammation improved ‘significantly’ after a restful night’s sleep.
Their research is backed up by a different study by the University of California (UCLA). The UCLA Cousins Center research team found that losing sleep for even part of one night can trigger tissue-damaging inflammation.
Dr Michael Irwin, lead author of the study said, “Our findings suggest even modest sleep loss may play a role in common disorders that affect sweeping segments of the population.”
The link between inflammation and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety is still being studied. However we do know that people with depression have higher inflammatory markers, and it’s thought that inflammation could be a cause of depression. Plus, new research indicates that when a person experiences high anxiety, their inflammation levels are also higher.
Sleep is one of the most powerful ways to protect your mind and reduce the risk and impact of anxiety and depression.
I’m too stressed about sleep to sleep
If you’re thinking, “I know sleep is important, but I struggle to sleep and reading how important it is only makes it worse”, then you’re not alone.
Not being able to sleep well can be extremely distressing, particularly when you know how vital it is for your physical and mental health.
The truth is, as soon as you start worrying about getting to sleep, it becomes much harder to get to sleep.
Kathryn Pinkham, founder of The Insomnia Clinic in the UK, says some common thoughts as you lie in bed at night include:
- If I don’t get to sleep soon, I will be tired tomorrow.
- I may make a mistake at work.
- Colleagues will think I’m not good enough at my job.
Then, too often, you might start catastrophising and worry you’ll lose your job and then lose your home and your life will be ruined.
“Before you know it, you are lying in bed at night, wide awake worrying about something that almost certainly isn’t likely to happen,” says Pinkham.
Pinkham provides three ways to control this worry and take charge of your sleep:
- Write out your thoughts and see which ones are real.
Start by allocating a maximum of 20 minutes each day to write down what you are worried about. Separate your worries into ‘real problems’ and ‘hypothetical problems’.
For example, a real problem would be ‘I have lost my job and need to find a new one’, whereas a hypothetical worry is ‘what if I lose my job and have to find a new one?’.
- Challenge your thoughts
If you’re worried about a prediction such as “if I don’t sleep well, I’ll get cranky with the kids”, challenge that assumption.
Ask yourself, does this always happen? Have you ever had a disrupted sleep and still coped OK? And have you ever had a good night’s sleep and still felt cranky?
Then ask, if the worst happened, would you still be able to cope? This question can help you see if your thinking is getting too extreme or catastrophic.
“Don’t put too much emphasis on sleep being the cure to all your problems,” Pinkham warns.
- Be mindful
“Disengage with your thoughts and treat them as visitors in your mind rather than being who you are,” advises Pinkham.
“As your thoughts around sleep arrive in your head, notice them, acknowledge them, even write them down if you need to but then let them drift away and re-focus your attention on either your breathing or your surroundings, for example, smells or sounds.”
This article was previously published in the Well at Work Newsletter
