Three assignments are due in the next five hours, and it’s already 10 pm. You decide sleep is for the weak. And dive straight into the heaps of work that awaits your attention.
Around 3:30 am, you wind it all up and get to bed only to get up at 7 am again. That gives you roughly four hours of sleep.
Now, if this sounds relatable to any extent, vow to your virtues and ask yourself how frequently do you find yourself in such scenarios? Is this an on-repeat thing? A never-ending loop?
Do you feel your performance going downhill by the day? Do you find yourself lethargic, unwilling to engage in anything at all? Do you find yourself putting in loads of effort in the most basic of stuff? Do you think you’re not even scratching the surface of your potential yet too tired all the freaking time?!
Well. You know, the lack of sleep is your root problem. Those bare minimum hours of rest are messing up with your mental health.
And you know how it goes: A full night’s rest makes a man healthy and wise! Let’s understand how exactly.
Understanding the Science of Sleep
Did you know? Sleep cycles repeat after every 90 to 110 minutes. And for each healthy individual, about four to six sleep cycles are necessary.
Fundamentally, sleep cycles occur in phases and stages, majorly known as NREM and REM. The NREM or non-REM phase is the light phase of sleep, in which you drift initially. In this stage, sleep can be easily disrupted as your brain is drifting in and out of consciousness.
Stage two follows this stage wherein your brain drifts into a stable sleep. The body temperature becomes lower than usual, the heart rate drops slightly, and you are in a state of unconsciousness.
Next comes stage three, which may last for 20-40 minutes. In this stage, the slumber deepens. Experts identify this as restorative sleep, which lets the body recover and grows. It also fuels your creativity, learning, and memory skills.
The fourth stage, i.e., the REM stage, lasts for 10-60 minutes. Usually, it’s the shortest phase.
REM is the abbreviation for Rapid Eye Movement, and it’s the time when your brain regains its activity. The body temperature returns to normal, the heart rate increases, and the muscles encounter a temporary paralysis. It is the stage where you dream, and it’s difficult to wake you up.
How are Mental Health and Sleep related?
Having analyzed the science of sleep, it is quite evident that replacing consecutive hours of sleep with short naps throughout the day or week could mess with the natural mechanism of your body. Lack of sleep could negatively impact your cognitive skills as well as recovering capabilities.
Even more, the relation between sleep and mental health is bidirectional. Sleeping lesser than the minimum hours required by your body could lead to the development of the following mental disorders:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Stress
- Bipolar Disorder
- ADHD
Along the same lines, the presence of such mental illnesses could also disrupt your sleeping patterns. Interestingly, the recovery relation is also bidirectional.
If you fix your sleep, you can help eradicate or slow down the development of these mental disorders. And it works the same if you work on fixing your mental disorders. Any improvements would mean a sound sleep. With that said, let’s have a look at the ways you can improve the overall status.
How to Improve?
To fix your sleep schedule, you ought to identify the factors that disturb your sleep. Is it your work? Is it the caffeine? Alcohol? An ongoing crisis of life? Random restless thoughts?
Once you have your root factor identified, work towards improving it or find a way around it. Say if it’s your racing mind that troubles you at night, then you can practice relaxation techniques like meditation, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, etc. Similarly, engaging in more and more physical activity throughout the day ensures that you are too tired to engage in anything else by bedtime. For a healthier edge to this practice, engage in aerobic exercises.
However, if you identify yourself as an insomniac and have lost all patience to retrain yourself. Then we suggest you try health-friendly cannabis solutions. You can learn more about them. The immediate relief provided by these will refuel your energy to start over with your restorative journey.
You can practice sleep hygiene, inclusive of maintaining a regular sleep-and-wake schedule. And avoid distractions in the bedroom and at bedtime. Doing so could also contribute to the betterment of your mental health by bringing your sleep routine to normal. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is yet another way to tame and direct yourself back to a healthier routine.
