The Impact of Sleep on Mental Health: Tips for Better Sleep Hygiene
Sleep impacts how our brain functions, how we emotionally regulate. It impacts our relationships. It obviously impacts mental health, anxiety and depression.
Some of the main common sleep disorders and their effects are Insomnia, that's something we hear about a lot. And I think we maybe overuse that a little bit of oh, I have insomnia just because you had a couple of nights of not sleeping although that's really distressing and not great for the body.
Insomnia is really a consistent not being able to sleep for more than a couple hours at a time or in little spurts. And so it's difficulty falling asleep or then staying asleep.
And then there's sleep apnea, which is interrupted breathing during sleep and that's something that's a medical diagnosis that can help using different sleep devices.
And then there's also restless leg syndrome, and that's uncomfortable sensations leading to an urge to move your legs.
Benefits of Good Sleep Hygiene
When we have good sleep hygiene, we have an improved mood and emotional stability. There's enhanced cognitive function and memory, reduced stress and anxiety.
There's going to be reduced depression as well as better overall physical health.
Tips for Improving Sleep Hygiene
You want to maintain a regular sleep schedule. So that would look like Going to bed every night at 10 pm and maybe reading and then falling asleep at 10:30 and then consistently waking up at say 6:30- 7 am. So whatever that is that's just a made up schedule but whatever your schedule is that you're consistent and so that you even do that on the weekends which I think people think I can catch up on sleep on the weekends but actually will negatively impact you. You really want to stay the same.
And if you do take naps you really want to keep those 30 minutes or less. So that way you don't hurt your sleep that night. So another way is to improve your sleep hygiene. You want to create a restful sleep environment. So that looks like, you want to limit the amount of light you get in the morning.
And you also want to limit exposure to screens before bedtime. So your phone or an iPad or your computer you want to avoid caffeine and heavy meals close to bedtime. So for some people, avoiding caffeine, that means you stop your caffeine intake at noon that day. For others, you might be able to push it a little bit more. 2 or 3 pm. But really you want to not do anything much after that.
Another thing you want to do is incorporate relaxation techniques, such as meditation or deep breathing that can be really helpful before sleep.
When to Seek Professional Help
If you're doing all of that consistently and you're not really noticing any improvements and you're still really struggling with sleep, that's when you may want to seek professional help.
When these persistent sleep problems, despite your good sleep hygiene practices, are happening and they impact sleep issues on daily functioning and your mental health. And so that's when you really want to reach out to somebody who either specializes in sleep or who's just a mental health professional.
And at Therapy Now SF, we have therapists that help with all of these facets and they can really help you improve your sleep and then overall mental health.