Mental Health and Your Sleep | ProductiveandFree

What does sleep have to do with your mental health, you wonder. It’s such a new concept that baffles so many people. But the answer is really right there in front of you. When you’re anxious, you can’t sleep. When you’re tired, you can’t sleep well. When your environment is a mess, you won’t be able to sleep well. When you’re going through something, there’s no way you can sleep. There are so many reasons that can affect sleep and when you can’t get the right amount of sleep, especially for a few days, a week, a month, a year… what’s going to happen then.

Quality of Life

Quality of life as defined by the World Health Organization is "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns."

In the era of social media, we’ve managed to compare our lives to the lives of others, resulting in the wanting of more and doing more to have what others have. Whether it is attainable or not is a huge question.

How does that affect our sleep? We work more, we stress more, we pressure ourselves more, we do more than we could at the expense of consistent sufficient restorative sleep.

After a good night’s sleep, we can definitely feel the difference – think better, focus better, accomplish more tasks in a day. When we lack sleep, we feel drowsy, we can’t focus, we feel irritable, we can’t think straight, we can’t even tell right from left.

Health Effects

It’s not just mood swings and thought processes that get affected – it is also your health. If you are not able to sleep well, not only are you physically tired, but you also get mentally and emotionally tired. Your body does not get do its essential processes like relaxing your heart to lower your blood pressure, grow tissue and cells to restore energy, to help make your immune system stronger, to let your brain process your memories during the day and remove toxins, to let your hormones work better and help you make better dietary choices.

When you constantly are sleep deprived it leads to more serious psychological issues like anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. It can also lead to chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attack and stroke. You can also be more susceptible to the cold and flu or more severe lung diseases.

The list really just goes on and it is very scary to think that all that can be caused by just lack of sleep. Funny how you can say ‘just’ lack of sleep when it is far from that.

Sleep Disorders

Now, you ask, what if I can’t sleep because of some other reason and it’s not just because ‘I can’t sleep’. Well, you do have a point there. There are dozens of sleep disorders out there and the best way to figure it out is to ask your primary care doctor.

The most common, and something, I believe, a lot of us would use loosely, is insomnia. This is when one would have difficulty falling or staying asleep for most nights for at least three months. Then there’s sleep apnea, when you snore so much, and so loudly, then you suddenly stop breathing that it wakes you up, gasping for air. Another famous sleep disorder that we hear all the time is narcolepsy, which is very much exaggerated in movies, but it is when you can’t control when you fall asleep, extreme sleepiness, and involuntary napping.

Please know that sleep disorders go hand in hand with mental health conditions as well as health issues. Even lifestyle affects sleep, from the foods we eat and what we drink to how much we travel and what time of day we go to work. So many things do affect our sleep that it all becomes a very fragile balancing act. How do we do it you ask?

How to Get Better Sleep

Make your sleeping environment cozy, relaxing and comfortable. Make sure it is cold with temperatures between 65- and 70-degrees Fahrenheit. Make it dark, by using room darkening curtains or even an eye mask. Control the noise around you, and if you can’t, use earplugs.

It is also best to have a consistent bedtime as well as waking time regardless if it is a weekday or weekend. Avoid any activities that can stimulate or interfere with your sleep. Like, do your workouts during daytime. Get off digitals at least an hour before bed. Avoid caffeine, alcohol, spicy foods, sugary foods and drinks. Practice meditation and mindfulness as well.

Also, listen to your body. It will tell you what you need. Some people may need six hours of sleep, some may need a lot more than that. Remember pain is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong.

Conclusion

Our mental health is very important because it is a key factor of our overall health and well-being. If we do not take care of it, everything else crumbles. If we do not sleep well, our physical, mental and emotional health will start to fall apart. Without consistent sufficient restorative sleep, how will we cope with the challenges and setbacks that life has to offer. Prioritize sleep. Take care of your mental health. You will thank yourself one day.