How Sleep Can Affect Your Mental Health and Wellness

How Sleep Can Affect Your Mental Health and Wellness

There is still so much to be researched on the link between mental health and sleep, but sleep been an elementary foundation of human well-being means it can have definite effects on your mental wellness and capability. Having a good night’s sleep – just like having a balanced diet and maintaining a good lifestyle – is very important in developing mental and emotional resilience, while chronic sleep problems will create room for negative mood and overthinking, anxiety, and depression.

 

Calmly reflect on this: you gain new information daily in life. Sleep provides you the luxury of ‘down time’ to process all these various tiny or large bits and pieces of information, and then enables storage of these processed information into your memory bank. This way they are easily accessible when you need them. Sleep is therefore very important for improving concentration, learning, and creativity.

What occurs to the mental part of the body when you encounter chronic sleeplessness and insomnia? Below are some of the possible adverse effects;

·     Your mind may work slowly – Do you know that a single night of inadequate sleep can negatively affect your attention span, concentration, mental alertness, and ability to solve problems? Those who fail to sleep regularly could develop weakened intelligence and mental problems.

·    You may lose your memory retention ability – While you sleep, the things you have learnt and experiences observed during the day are expected to be properly organized in your mind for future use and access. So, if you don’t get enough sleep, you may certainly develop troubles remembering what you learn and go through daily.

·    You may develop depression – Insomnia has been linked to the development of depression. According to a research, people who have been reported to have troubles sleeping regularly were five times more likely to show traits of depression.  Though, it remains unclear whether depression is as a result of sleeplessness or vice versa. Whichever way, getting a good amount of sleep is very important in treating this disorder.

·       You may lose some smartness – If you don’t get enough sleep, your performance level in running tasks (such as completing very tedious or complex jobs or projects at work) that utilizes the brain may largely drop lower. A full night’s sleep - which is very vital to maintain a balanced mental health - organizes information obtained during the day and connects the mind to it. Lack of a good sleep may give you a hard time in retrieving the stored information for school or work when next you need them.

·       Your happiness level may be affected – Sleep provides your brain with time you need to refresh and balance the chemicals and hormones that controls mental clarity, emotions, and mood. This process ensures that you are calm, relaxed, energized and happy.

There are numerous ways to achieve improved sleep. All you need do is improve your sleep habits by properly scheduling your bedtime and waking time with your daily routines. You should avoid unnecessary noise and the blue light from electronic gadgets. If this does not work for you, it is best to quickly arrange a meeting with your local doctor or a psychologist who can expertly derive the causes of your sleeplessness and recommend effective natural remedies.