Have you ever
waken up from a seemingly long nap and just felt terrible? Instead of all the
restorative properties that people associate with sleep, you feel like that it
has done the exact opposite; you feel worse after sleeping than before. You
wake up in a worse mood and not even a cup of your favorite coffee can help you
liven up. You might feel a slight pang of depression, and you might feel like
your joints haven’t been oiled in a while. Your whole body hurts as if it has been
ran over by a stampede of wild buffalo. These are symptoms of an individual
whose sleep has been disrupted. Daniel Bor writes in his book, Ravenous Brain, that he notices strange
things start to occur when an individual is deprived of his night of slumber.
Bor notes that when he was lacking in his nightly hours, he became “more
anxious, more prone to stress, less confident than usual…two days with little
sleep and [he] approached the edges of hallucination.” A perfect example of
this phenomena would also be my roommate. He always complains about how he
better get his eight hours of sleep nightly, or else he will not be able to
function for the upcoming day. I kid you not. I remember one day he only got
six hours, which is a lot in my opinion as a college student. My roommate at
one moment could barely keep his eyes open as he crossed the street, and at
other moments he started yelling when he was asked to pass the remote, while
other moments still he would jump up and down in his room warming up before
going to the gym. 
It
has been known for a while that sleep problems are associated with psychiatric
disorders A person with depression might become stressful because of her
thoughts or emotions, and this could lead to her being up all night, which in
turn would make her more anxious, depressed, and stressful and the cycle starts
over. Bor notes that these other symptoms such as strange hyperactivity and
exaggerated actions could point to other disorders such as ADHD and bipolar
disorder. New research tested by the American College of Rheumatology indicates
that “poor sleep increases depression and disability…and is common among those
with pain.” The researcher studied 288 patients, who provided information
dealing with “sleep disturbances, pain, functional limitations, and depressive
symptoms.” Missing out on sleep over a period of time slowly wears down a
person’s mental health along with their physical health. Research has also
shown that “abnormalities in genetic and molecular processes that regulate
sleep have been liked with unipolar depression, seasonal affective disorder,
bipolar disorder, mania, panic disorder, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and schizophrenia.” More
people need to be aware of how serious not getting a complete rest is. As we go
along in our bust lives, we need to stop and recharge ourselves during the
night, or we will constantly be running on that 1% battery that will last
shorter and shorter until we hit 0% and completely shut down.
So
maybe my roommate has a point. We all need our sleep, however much that may be.
Sleep abnormalities are now being viewed as a potential cause of mental illness
rather than a symptom, and we now need to start targeting the fact that sleep
quality needs to be improved or else we will suffer more than just a bad grade.
Bor,
Daniel. The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness
Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. New York: Basic,
2012. Print.
Wiley. (2014,
October 6). Vicious cycle in osteoarthritis: Sleep disturbance, pain,
depression, disability. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 17, 2014
from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141006085337.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment