“Poor sleep worsens mental health.”
Poor sleep worsens mood and anxiety, and improving sleep improves mental health symptoms, though the link also runs the other way.
Better sleep is one of the most practical ways to protect your mood, and treating insomnia helps many people feel better. Sleep is rarely the only cause of mental health symptoms, so it works best alongside therapy or medication when those are needed.
Keep the same wake time every day this week, and if insomnia has lasted for weeks, ask a clinician about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.
Safety note: Severe sleep loss can trigger mania in people with bipolar disorder and makes driving unsafe.
Talk to a healthcare professional if: sleep problems last for weeks, you snore loudly or stop breathing during sleep, you are very sleepy during the day, or your mood is getting worse. Get help right away for thoughts of suicide, losing touch with reality, or sleepiness that makes driving unsafe.
Two kinds of experiment point the same way: cutting people's sleep in the lab lowers good mood and raises anxiety, and 65 randomized trials show that improving sleep improves depression, anxiety and overall mental health, with bigger sleep gains bringing bigger mental health gains. Confidence is strong because these results come from thousands of people across many well-controlled studies.
Poor sleep worsens mood and anxiety, and improving sleep improves mental health symptoms, though the link also runs the other way. In 154 experiments that cut sleep in healthy people, sleep loss lowered positive mood and raised anxiety. In 65 randomized trials, treating sleep problems led to medium-sized drops in depression and anxiety.
Mental health conditions can also disrupt sleep, so each can feed the other. In the lab experiments, effects on low mood and depressive symptoms were mixed and depended on the type of sleep loss, while effects on positive mood and anxiety were consistent. In a trial of 3,755 university students with insomnia, online therapy for insomnia improved sleep and also reduced paranoia and hallucinations. Sleep is one contributor among biology, stress, relationships, health conditions and substances.
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- Scott AJ, Webb TL, Martyn-St James M, Rowse G, Weich S. Improving sleep quality leads to better mental health: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2021;60:101556. DOI: 10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101556. PMID: 34607184. PMCID: PMC8651630
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