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Why Sleep Is So Important for Mental Wellbeing

Whether you’re planning to invest in a buckwheat pillow or have a whole nightly routine to help your busy brain settle down, you can’t deny that sleep is something that we have been told to prioritize time and time again. Health and science classes have likely been telling you the importance of sleep for maintaining a healthy body and copious amounts of research have been done on the topic. Even if you haven’t been keeping up with the academic journals, most of us have probably experienced the grogginess and regret that accompanies staying up too late and having to rely on caffeine to get us through the next day.   

Just as sleep plays a fairly large role in maintaining one’s physical wellbeing, it also plays an important role in preserving our mental health. Psychologists have linked poor sleeping habits to a variety of issues including higher stress and higher likelihood for mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. So what is it about sleep that makes it so indispensable?

Why Do We Need To Sleep?

Sleeping is an indispensable physical process needed to sustain life just like eating, hydrating and breathing. Sleep is so important because it’s basically one of the few times the body can actively recover from both mental and physical strain that we have put on our body and brain throughout the day. This is partially why you may feel tired and irritable throughout the day if you didn’t get enough sleep the night before. 

Additionally, when we sleep, the brain tends to process emotional information that we didn’t manage to address during our waking hours. This typically happens during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and is believed to be partially responsible for what we dream about at night. Lack of sleep and therefore not being able to enter the REM sleep stage enough can affect our ability to consolidate positive emotional content which leads to higher instances of depression and anxiety. 

How Much Sleep Do I Actually Need?

It depends on your age group. A typical adult tends to need somewhere between 7-9 hours of sleep while teens and younger children need even more to ensure healthy physical and mental growth. That being said, the quality of sleep is more important than the quantity.

Excessive sleeping can also be an indicator of underlying health issues since it indicates that the body’s quality of sleep is poor and therefore the person does not feel like they have the energy to get up. This is partially why you sleep so much more whenever you get physically ill and injured as well since more energy needs to be devoted to physical healing and therefore the body demands more rest.

So Will I Develop Mental Health Conditions If I Don’t Get Enough Sleep?

There’s no straightforward answer to this. Brain activity during sleep is still a field of study that has much room for exploration. Although we are aware that different stages of sleep such as REM and Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) exist, what exactly the brain is doing during those processes is not something we can completely accurately pinpoint. That being said, there does seem to be a correlation between prolonged poor sleep and mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder amongst many others. 

Current research suggests that the relationship between mental health conditions and poor sleep is bi-directional, so while poor sleep may not be the main contributing factor towards such mental health conditions, it definitely can affect and be affected by them. 

One possible reason for this is that poor sleep can cause the ability of a person to regulate their emotions and problem solve to be hindered, this means that when faced with the stressors of daily life, a person may find that they have difficulties coping and resolving these problems. In turn, this can cause their self esteem to be affected and their mood to be negatively affected which can negatively impact one’s mental health. Additionally, many mental health conditions also inhibit the production of certain brain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin, which can affect a person’s ability to fall asleep and their subsequent sleep quality.  

Oftentimes, poor sleep quality or an inability to sleep can indicate underlying health conditions such as excess stress. So while poor sleep is likely not the direct cause for mental health conditions, we cannot deny that there is a strong relationship between the two. 

There’s no denying that sleep is an important factor in ensuring good overall health. Poor sleep is linked to a multitude of health issues both physical and mental and can cause them to worsen over a prolonged period of time. So the next time you may be tempted to pull an all-nighter in the interest of rushing an assignment or filing documents, you may wish to consider not doing so in the interest of preserving your own wellbeing.

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Sleep 101: Why Sleep Is So Important to Your Health

Erica Jansen

Research assistant professor of nutritional sciences.

March 2, 2020

What is sleep exactly, and how does it help us stay healthy?

Sleep is an altered state of consciousness where we have limited interactions with our surroundings and are relatively quiet and still (depending on the stage of sleep). Contrary to our quiet physical state, the brain is very active during sleep, carrying out many important functions. Sleep is essential to every process in the body, affecting our physical and mental functioning the next day, our ability to fight disease and develop immunity, and our metabolism and chronic disease risk. Sleep is truly interdisciplinary because it touches every aspect of health.

Sleep is essential to every process in the body, affecting our physical and mental functioning the next day, our ability to fight disease and develop immunity, and our metabolism and chronic disease risk.

How does what we eat impact our sleep?

It is well-known that certain substances, such as caffeine, can affect the onset of sleep in a negative way. On the other hand, evidence is growing that shows how other foods like tart cherries, kiwi, fatty fish (like salmon and tuna), and malted milk may have beneficial effects on sleep. More recently, studies have shown that healthy dietary patterns overall—not just specific foods—could be associated with longer sleep duration and shorter time to fall asleep.

Why is sleep so important for young children, and what are some of the common negative effects of poor sleep?

Sleep is important for every part of the body, and it is especially important for young children as their bodies and minds develop. In young children, lack of sleep or poor quality sleep can be associated with difficult behaviors, lower capacity to learn and retain information, and a propensity for poor eating patterns and weight gain.

What sleep needs do adolescents have, and what does this mean for the current conversations we're having around school-day start times?

Adolescents need around 8-10 hours of sleep per night, but a high proportion do not get that amount. For example, recent estimates suggest that 60 percent of middle schoolers and 70 percent of high schoolers don’t get adequate sleep on school nights. This figure is even higher for Michigan high schoolers, which is at 80 percent. One of the main reasons adolescents are so sleep-deprived is that biological changes in their brain affect when they feel sleepy. So even if they are sleep-deprived, they often can’t go to bed early because their brain is not yet prepared to sleep.

In school districts that have enacted later school start times, research is consistently showing that students get more sleep and as a result have fewer motor vehicle accidents, better grades, and improved mental health.

The problem with these delayed bedtimes is that school or before-school activities often start very early, so adolescents may end up chronically sleep deprived. In school districts that have enacted later school start times, research is consistently showing that students get more sleep and as a result have fewer motor vehicle accidents, better grades, and improved mental health.

Every spring and fall we change our clocks by an hour. What health impacts does this change have on individuals and on the public’s health?

There are many calls from the sleep-research community to eliminate daylight savings time. When our clocks are pushed forward, people lose one hour of sleep. This one-hour sleep loss is associated with significantly more motor vehicle accidents as well as cardiac events. When our clocks move backward, we might think that extra hour helps us. But our sleep patterns are disrupted by any change like this, so the fall time change may also lead to negative health impacts. In general, these universal time changes create a significant and negative burden on the public’s health.

How important is sleep for our mental health?

Sleep and mental health go hand-in-hand. Good sleep is essential for maintaining our baseline mental health, as one night of sleep deprivation can dramatically affect mood the next day. Chronic exposure to poor sleep quality is associated with depression, anxiety, and other conditions. There are also bidirectional associations—meaning that experiencing anxiety and depression very often affects sleep, which then impacts our ability to cope with the anxiety and depression, and so on.

How does alcohol impact sleep?

Although alcohol may help a person fall asleep quickly, it hinders sleep quality, often causing fragmented (interrupted) sleep. When consuming alcohol, it is recommended to do so several hours before bedtime so that the alcohol is completely out of the system before sleep.

Does screen time really affect our sleep?

There is evidence to show that screen use right before bed could impact sleep. One reason is that the blue light emitted from these devices can affect the secretion of melatonin, the hormone that helps signal to the body that it is time to fall asleep. Other reasons include the content of what is on the screen. If you watch a scary movie, read an emotionally-driven article, or consume any other anxiety-producing content on your screen, it can affect your ability to fall asleep. Sleep clinicians recommend putting away all screens at least one hour before bed and to instead do some light reading or other relaxing activity.

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