Looking For A Way To Improve Your Mental Health This Week? We Could All Start By Getting A Good Night’s Sleep

Mental health has been top of mind for many, particularly since the onset of the pandemic. Even if you’re not dealing with new or worsened mental health challenges, you probably know someone who is. While we might talk about the importance of seeking support through honest conversation, therapy, or medication, there’s one key factor that we just don’t talk about enough: sleep.

The relationship between sleep and mental health is a two-way street. Research shows that people who struggle with mental health problems also tend to experience low-quality sleep. The reverse is true too. Poor sleep worsens mental health challenges. In fact, of the 300 million people around the world who suffer from depression, 75% of those people also show signs of difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep or other sleep-related issues. This statistic disproportionately affects women — who are more likely to experience both difficulty sleeping and depression and anxiety — and people of color, who report sleeping less on average due to social and environmental determinants outside of their control. But depression and anxiety are not the only conditions impacted by sleep. Poor sleep influences other mental health conditions, such as bipolar disorder, ADHD, PTSD and more.

Reframing low-quality sleep: it’s not just a nuisance, it’s a problem

You’ve probably read, overheard, or used the phrase: “trouble winding down” (or something similar) this week. But if you’ve experienced difficulty sleeping firsthand, you know that tossing and turning while your alarm clock fast approaches the hour you have to roll out of bed can take a significant toll on your mental health.

When you experience low-quality sleep, you don’t recharge — and when you begin operating in “power save mode,” the quality of your work and personal relationships takes a serious hit. It’s difficult to greet the day when it begins with a jolt awake at 3:30 AM. Honestly, it’s difficult to do much else other than accomplish basic tasks.

Despite all of this, problems with sleep are all too often seen as an “acceptable” kind of issue.

People simply aren’t aware that low-quality sleep can have a clinically recognizable impact on daily functioning. Findings from studies like this one, which found a strong correlation between sleep quality and psychological well-being, haven’t been well circulated. When people are informed, the process of finding care presents its own set of challenges. It’s difficult enough for people to find a sleep specialist practicing near them, but juggling multiple care providers to ensure care is insured is essentially a part-time administrative job. Most people don’t have the time or the energy, particularly when sleep deprived, to take that on.

The onset of the pandemic made waking life far more stressful — but it impacted our sleep significantly as well. In early 2022, 57% of Americans reported sleeping less, having a harder time falling asleep or waking up since the year prior — which connects to other clinically diagnosed mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, and recurring pain. Yet patients aren’t generally prompted by their healthcare providers to think about how poor sleep might be impacting their mental well-being. One London-based study found that 90% of the health care professionals surveyed only ask patients about sleep when it is relevant to their complaints.

Meanwhile, the ratio of sleep specialists to the American population is 43,000 people for every 1 specialist. That means that the majority of the approximately 70 million patients who likely suffer from a sleep-related disorder don’t have easy access to a physician who can diagnose them properly.

The sleep-care pathway is a nightmare to navigate

Attempting to address disordered sleep is similar to navigating the mental healthcare process. Unfortunately, the comparison isn’t favorable — both systems are fragmented and difficult to navigate from the get-go.

The general lack of awareness regarding the prevalence of sleep disorders and the negative impact they can have on an individual’s mental health, combined with the scarcity of sleep clinics, means that PCPs haven’t historically been the ones identifying patients at risk and guiding them through care.

Instead, patients are left alone to stumble through this fractured landscape. Past studies have shown that the average reported lag time between when a patient notices symptoms for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common sleep disorder involving abnormal breathing, and when a positive diagnosis is given, is about 10 years.

Navigating multiple care providers, which entails coordinating appointments and communication between physicians, DMEs, and insurance, is difficult on a good day. Those obstacles become disincentivizing when your mental health is already negatively impacted by your poor sleep. As is far too often the case, a lack of resources leaves sleep care the most inaccessible to people of color, while exposure to racial discrimmination leads to heightened levels of stress that directly contributes to sleep inequities. Quality of sleep is unequal across the population, with studies showing that people of color are more likely to have trouble falling asleep, sleep fewer hours, and spend less of those hours in deep sleep compared to white people. Any large-scale plan to fix sleep, or even any individual care regimen, would be well served by taking equity into account.

Strong relationships are built on a good night’s rest

When quality of sleep causes a decline in mental health, the impact doesn’t stop with the individual. Yes, insufficient sleep as a whole is estimated to cost the U.S. economy over $411 billion each year, but the real cost is incalculable. Better sleep is key to showing up for each other, whether you’re acting as a friend, parent, partner, or employee. When people aren’t seeing the world through restful eyes, that impacts interpersonal relationships, and ultimately, entire communities.

We can’t control all of the underlying issues that perpetuate the prevalence of mental illness today, but we have a responsibility to positively contribute to every person’s unique healthcare journey. By connecting individuals with the resources needed to create equitable sleep outcomes, we can create better health overall.

To learn more about sleep disorders, visit here: https://www.apa.org/topics/sleep/disorders