Why Sleep Is Important for Mental Health & How to Find Out How Much You Need

Are you suffering from irritability, memory problems, depression, poor focus, mood issues, bad judgment, and lack of motivation? Have you been told these are the symptoms of a mental health diagnosis? Surprise – these can also be the symptoms of inadequate sleep!

Most of us know we need to sleep enough to function properly. Sleep is not a luxury, nor should it be treated as such. However, it’s unclear how many people realize just how badly sleep deprivation can affect them.

One study found that not getting enough sleep can raise your risk of “frequent mental distress” around 2.5 times higher than if you were well-rested. In other words, if you are predisposed to, say, having emotional outbursts 10 times a month, cutting back on sleep can increase those episodes to 25 times a month!

Another study concludes that people who do not currently have depression but who do have insomnia are at twice the risk of coming down with depression. This echoes the findings of the study on sleep and frequent mental distress that I mentioned above. The authors write, “The close link between insomnia and depression suggests that the conditions are not just randomly associated. Insomnia is now considered not only a symptom of but also a possible predictor of depression.” Implied is that lack of sleep creates a vulnerability that would not otherwise be present. I would be curious to know just how much societal rates of depression would drop if it became normal to prioritize sleep!

Browsing through other research articles, I have seen a decent amount of evidence for a relationship between inadequate sleep and poor mental health. People with schizophrenia have been found to have shorter sleep duration and lower quality of sleep. Paranoia and insomnia tend to co-occur, and psychotic symptoms can be induced in non-psychotic persons by depriving them of sleep. The reverse is also possible, with psychotic symptoms potentially diminishing with better sleep. Besides schizophrenia, disrupted sleep has been observed in people with OCD, anxiety, and mood disorders.

In this article, Psychiatrist Imran Khawaja shares that all of his colleagues attested to observing in their patients a universal trend of sleep issues paired with mental health problems. He goes on to write that about 80% of schizophrenics and close to all of people with bipolar (pre-mania) experience poor sleep. Moreover, he adds that sleep disorders can make a person more vulnerable to getting PTSD or other mental health complications when exposed to high stress.

It has been established that mental illness and sleep issues tend to go hand in hand, but the relationship between them is not a one-way street. This means that, for some people, a cumulative lack of sleep may open the door for mental health problems, but for others, existing mental health problems may result in sleep deficits.

Exactly how much sleep do you need?

The old standard was 8 hours per night, but more resources are now taking individual variation into account and recommending between 7 to 9 hours. If you have adjusted your sleep schedule according to the guidelines, yet still find yourself dozing off during the day, then you might yet need to increase your sleep time. You are probably nodding off because you are still skimping on sleep and don’t even know it.

Notably, there is a two hour difference in the recommended range. So, the question remains of how to narrow the amount to the exact needs for a specific person. Even being an hour off on your actual needs will start building up sleep debt, and I personally find that I can feel the effect of even a deficit of half hour. If you haven’t heard of the term before, sleep debt is exactly what it sounds like – the accumulated hours of lost sleep that you owe your body. People usually repay this as best as they can by sleeping late on weekends or taking inadvertent naps during the day. That doesn’t necessarily work out, because research indicates that a surprising 4 days of extended sleep are needed to pay off just 1 hour of sleep debt and as much as 9 days may be needed for a full recovery!

Here is how I figured out exactly how much sleep I need.

First of all, you will need to reserve some time to catch up on sleep debt. Based on the research above, I suppose it would be optimal to dedicate about a week to prioritize unlimited time for sleeping. Personally, I believe I only set aside one day to catch up on sleep debt, and the result worked fine for me. So, if you can’t spare a week, a weekend or vacation time should work.

Once you’ve caught up on sleep debt, it’s time to calculate the number of hours your body normally requires. Make note of the time when you go to sleep. Before you go to bed, turn off your alarm clock. You will not need it.

Allow yourself to sleep until you wake up naturally, without the use of stimulants.

Note the time and do the math — this is the amount you actually need, at least for the time being.

Your personal needs may fall outside of the official sleep recommendations. That is to say, maybe you need as many as 10 hours of sleep or as few as 6. If you feel refreshed with less than 7 hours of sleep, congratulations – you are genetically blessed. If, on the other hand, you need 10 or more hours, you may still need to catch up on sleep debt or you could possibly have an underlying health condition

Other articles that may interest you: