Sleep is one of the most easy, accessible, and effective ways to improve one’s mental health. Because of the multitude and variation of benefits that it provides, sleep should be considered the foundation for mental health and health in general.
One important benefit of sleep is its role in emotional regulation. Getting adequate sleep allows the brain to manage the coming day’s challenges with reason and stability, while lack of sleep leads to increased irritability. The main neuroscience reasons for this benefit are that sleep is responsible for emotional processing of the day’s events and poor sleep causes overactivation of the amygdala.
Additionally, many important neurotransmitter pathways are properly recalibrated during a full night of rest. For example, sleep recalibrates important neurotransmitter receptors such as those of dopamine or serotonin. Additionally, during sleep, GABA activity increases, allowing for calmness when waking up.
In the world, the effects of poor sleep are clear–chronic sleep deprivation is linked to numerous mental health disorders including depression and anxiety disorders. For example, one study found that 72% of patients with generalized anxiety disorder reported having sleep disturbance.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399925001722)
So now, start taking good care of yourself by ensuring a good night of sleep every day!
Inside the Mind 