Improved sleep can lead to improved mental health. Here’s how.
By Carly Fleming, M.Ed., Registered Psychotherapist
It is commonly understood that good sleep is a component of a healthy lifestyle. But how does sleep tie into our mental health? Let’s take a closer look.
If you’ve ever struggled with insomnia, fatigue, or sleeplessness you know that these things can lead to low mood, irritability and difficulty managing stress. Picture a “typical” stressful day – maybe a trip to the hospital for routine tests or procedures or travelling to visit family using various transportation methods. Imagine that the night before you went to bed at a decent hour, you feel asleep easily and had a restful sleep before waking up at you regular time. In this scenario, you might imagine facing your stressful day with confidence, competence and lightheartedness. Now imagine that you stayed up far too late, you had trouble falling asleep and then the sleep that you did get was fitful. When you picture this scenario, you probably imagine lots of physical discomfort, increased anxiety and a feeling that maybe managing this stressful day isn’t possible at all. In a nutshell, this is the impact that sleep problems can have on your mental health as a whole.
The relationship between quality of sleep and mental health is well documented across the lifespan. Whether we are talking about children, youth, adults or older adults, it is well-understood that there is a “bidirectional” relationship between sleep and mental health. This means that when someone receives help for their mental health struggles, their sleep often improves. But also, when sleep improves, people tend to see an improvement in their mental health struggles. Given that it can be difficult to access mental health supports for many people, tackling sleep issues is often a more direct way to improve mental health. And as an added bonus, when sleep improves, so do many physical health symptoms.
It’s clear that addressing sleep problems is a win-win for our mental and physical health, so what’s next?
Here are three evidence-based and easy to implement strategies for improving sleep.
Stick to a Sleep Schedule
When people struggle with sleep, their sleep schedule can become erratic. Perhaps they struggle with falling asleep so they sleep in late in the morning or take a nap in the afternoon. While this may ease tiredness in the short-run, this kind of erratic sleep schedule can wreak havoc with sleep in the long run. Even if it means some short-term discomfort (e.g. waking up at your scheduled time even though you’ve only had a couple of hours sleep), it is vital to train your body to fall asleep at your desired bedtime and wake at your desired wake time. It can take quite some time to train your body if you’ve been struggling with sleep for a long time so be patient with yourself, reach out to others in your life for support, and be kind with yourself while your body adjusts.
Experiment with Different Relaxation Methods
We all know that when we try to go to sleep with a “busy mind” or we are carrying a lot of stress in our body, we can have a more difficult time. This is why relaxation is key. There are many different ways you can experiment with relaxation before bed and not each method is going to work for each person. So give each of these a try and see what works for you: breathing exercises , progressive muscle relaxation , or meditation. There are many apps available for your smartphone that will provide these practices for a small fee (or free).
Choose a Helpful Sleep Narrative
Sleep problems often go hand-in-hand with unhelpful personal narratives about sleep. For example, when faced with the prospect of laying down in bed at a designated time and trying to sleep, an unhelpful narrative might emerge that sounds like “I can never fall asleep this early” or “if I don’t fall asleep right away, I’m going to have a terrible night”. These narratives can immediately increase anxiety which increases the chances of having difficulty. A more helpful narrative might be “my body needs rest and I am listening to my body” or “what a treat it is to go to bed so early”. Each person will find different narratives helpful but spend some time considering some healthy sleep narratives and intentionally focus on these narratives as you are trying to fall asleep.
Give yourself some time to try these strategies before determining if they are useful for you or not. You will need more than a night or two before you see improvements so be patient and stick to your sleep improvement plan. However, if sleep problems persist, it is a good idea to see your doctor who can help you identify the underlying reasons for the problems and suggest some treatments that may help you.
Looking for some support?
If sleep struggles are negatively impacting your mental health, therapy can help! In conjunction with various health professionals, psychotherapy can be a very effective way to address the underlying issues related to sleep issues. Interested in learning more? Book a free 30-minute consultation to discuss your needs further.
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