Good-quality sleep supports your mental health
"Sleep on it" is a tip that we've probably all received or given at one time or another. It might sound trite, but it's sensible advice, as how much and how well we sleep affects how we feel. Sleep also influences our resistance to stress, which has a huge impact on our mental health.
First and foremost, sleep helps us restore our energy levels. Like all other living beings, we need it to survive, as it is during sleep that our body can regenerate, strengthen our immune system and even optimise our metabolic processes. When we don't get enough sleep, our body misses out on some of this precious recovery phase, leaving us more susceptible to illness.
But it's not just our physical health that's affected – sleep also has an impact on our mental state. Even a single night without enough sleep is enough to show just how important it is for our mood. Nerves are on edge, emotions rise to the surface more quickly and are more intense, and productivity suffers. But why is that?
Sleep is essential for processing stress
For many people, stress is a constant daily companion. Whether in the workplace or at home with the family – stress is simply part and parcel of many situations. This doesn't always have to be a negative. By putting us in a state of alert and giving us a boost of energy in dangerous situations, it can even play an important role in our survival. If it continues over a longer period, however, then stress becomes unhealthy. In the long term, stress can increase our risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disease due to higher blood pressure and cortisol levels.
The situations we find stressful and the intensity of the stress we experience are both heavily influenced by how long we sleep for and how restful that sleep is. Sleep helps us process the stress we have experienced and build higher resistance to stressful situations we may face in the future. So if we're well rested and refreshed, we will often perceive a potentially stressful situation as less serious than if we're overtired.
Too little sleep causes us to give greater weight to negative emotions
After a sleepless night, our emotional state can quickly hit rock bottom. A minor irritation is all it takes to spoil our mood. The reason for this is that when we're overtired we place greater emphasis on negative feelings than on positive or neutral emotions. It's almost as if the "recipe" for our mood has been changed and the quantities of all the negative ingredients doubled – a downright mean trick.
The limbic system in our brain, which is responsible for processing emotions, is overactive and also responds to "insignificant" emotional stimuli that can usually just be blocked out. As a result, we feel irritated more quickly, are in a bad mood and highly emotional.
People can generally cope relatively easily with a single sleepless night – some extra sleep the following night helps us get back on track without needing to worry about any consequences for our mental health. However, people who sleep badly or don't get enough sleep over an extended period have permanently low resistance to stress and an excess of negative emotions. Their risk of mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety is significantly increased.
And this carries straight through to the next problem, namely the interaction between sleep and mental health. What this means is that mental health problems caused by a lack of sleep themselves have a negative impact on sleep quality. This creates a vicious circle that can be very difficult to break out of, making it all the more important for us to keep a close eye on our sleep patterns. Doing this enables us to take appropriate action at an early stage.
SWICA sleep programme
Sleep issues (such as problems falling asleep or sleeping through the night, or waking too early) which persist over a long period can have consequences for your health. SWICA supports anyone suffering from these issues with coaching calls or guided online self-help courses.
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