Why is sleep essential for mental health?
Sufficient sleep is essential for good mental health. Prescribing sleep can be pivotal in reducing the pain and cost of mental illness.
Sleep is the secret medicine for good mental health. As the prominent sleep scientist, Dr Matthew Walker writes, (Walker, 2017) “the physical and mental impairments caused by one night of bad sleep dwarf those caused by an equivalent absence of food and exercise.” We all struggle with sleep at some point in our lives, especially in periods of change, stress, grief, or loneliness, due to a chronic sleep condition or after consumption of too much blue light from our phones, alcohol (which makes it easier to enter SWS but stops REM sleep), or sugar (which causes sugar lows which interrupt vital REM sleep). Yet so few of us make it a priority, at a huge cost to our mental health. So, why do we need sleep, and why is it essential we prescribe sleep to enhance our mental well-being?
What are the main ways sleep affects mental health?
1. Sleep is needed for emotional processing
There are two main phases of sleep (Walker, 2022). The first is SWS or slow wave sleep (non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, NREM) and the second is Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. In this second phase of sleep human brains act like computers and analyse all the day’s learnings, events and emotions felt during the day and processes them to help find logical patterns and solutions. The absence of sleep can make it harder to problem solve, and think rationally, and may lead to more extreme emotions and feelings.
2. Sleep is needed for learning and memory reconsolidation
During REM sleep our brains act like memory sticks. They take the day’s activities and upload them onto our main brain hard drive and connect with the main saved files in our memories, helping us to combine our new and old knowledge and learn. In the absence of sleep, we are less able to learn new things and remember old things, and therefore less able to learn from mistakes and prevent repeating poor habits and negative coping mechanisms, worsening our mental health.
3. Sleep is needed for recharging our energy levels and vitality
The main reason we sleep is for rest. During sleep, our brains recharge. They produce Noradrenaline, our “rest and digest” brain chemical, which reduces anxiety and is soothing. This helps us feel calm. It also uses our restful period to combine sugars from our food and oxygen that we breathe in to make energy, giving us lots of restorative vitality when we wake up. This vitality can help make us feel more positive and therefore boosts our sense of mental wellness.
4. Sleep is needed for boosting our immune systems
After sleep, the rested brain can focus on the production of immune (our body's defence system) cells. These cells defend against infection. Inadequate sleep puts individuals at higher risk of disease. When we are unwell, we are more fatigued, as fighting infection takes considerable energy and fatigue worsens mental health. Therefore, sleep is both defensive, and protective and helps prevent extreme emotions that are exacerbated by fatigue.
5. Sleep is needed for stress resilience and impulse control
Sleep helps us rationalise situations, find positive strategies for reversing negative scenarios and overcome stressful situations. In the absence of sleep, our brains do not enter the calming Noradrenaline “rest and digest” state. They become stuck in our hyper Adrenaline “fight-or-flight” state and pump our muscles full of energy to help us fight a possible threat, making us alert and on edge and hyper-sensitive to any potential stressors. Therefore, when overtired and fatigued, we are less able to manage stress.
What is the cost of poor sleep?
12.7% of all workforce sickness absence days in the UK are attributed to mental health conditions according to the Mental Health Foundation, based on evidence from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), (Mental Health Foundation, 2022). This comes at a huge mental, physical, and financial cost to both businesses and employees, which is so important in the current cost of living crisis
It is time to make sleep a priority
We are now at a time when doctors are prescribing sleep for mental health therapy. As Scientist Alexander Scott (Scott et al, 2021) and his team wrote in their metanalysis “sleep represents a viable treatment target that can confer significant benefits to mental health.” Yet every person is unique and sleep, like medicine and nutrition, must be prescribed and tailored to each individual. Sleep is the quickest, easiest to obtain and most sustainable and cheapest form of therapy.
It is time we took notice of our sleep and made it a priority. It is time for a sleep prescription.
Sleep for your sanity.
Copyright Laura Campbell 29/09/2022
