World Mental Health Day 2021: Here's How A Healthy Sleep Cycle Can Help Your Mental Health

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted everyday lifestyle in a big way. Work from home and remote working conditions has interrupted routines, pushing you to work and engage for longer hours, and stay connected. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has focused its efforts on creating awareness and driving investment in health beyond physical while observing the World Mental Health Day this year. And rightly so, just as we invest in maintaining our physical health, we must also invest our time and resources in keeping our mental health in check. A starting point for good physical and mental health is getting a night of good quality sleep. As per a global study, 45% of the respondents surveyed have reported heightened anxiety, and 24% said they observed heightened feelings of depression due to lack of sleep during the pandemic. Not only does sleep give your body adequate rest to rejuvenate and regulate emotions, but it also heals your heart and blood vessels. A good night sleep helps you to stay fresh throughout the day, hence increasing your productivity and boosting confidence.

The role of a healthy sleep routine

Insomnia is a well-known sleep disorder; however, there are other sleep disorders that require our attention. Sleep Apnea is one such sleep disorder, where there is cessation of breathing while sleeping for a few seconds, because of which an individual wakes up abruptly in the middle of the night. This phenomenon may happen several times during the entire night. As a result, sleep is disturbed and the individual wakes up in the morning, tired, fatigued, and irritated.

Sleep disturbance leads to decreased productivity, lack of innovation, depression, cardio-metabolic disorders and may even lead to severe incidents such as traffic accidents. A study by Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital found that productivity on cognitive tasks deteriorates with increasing lack of sleep, and the effects progressively worsen over time. Sleep deprivation caused by sleep apnea can lead to mood swings and irritable behaviour with people around you and a decrease in innovative thinking and performance.

It is worth noting that most often we do not tend to take sleep disorders seriously, as we tend to feel that sleep is a passive phenomenon.

To begin with, adopting simple lifestyle changes such as reducing weight, avoiding smoking and alcohol consumption, doing mindfulness exercise like meditation closer to bedtime can help one maintain a good sleep cycle.

If you find yourself getting irritated, unable to focus, have daytime sleepiness and experience difficulty in doing even the simplest of tasks, you need to look into your sleep schedule and habits.

(Dr Sibasish Dey, Head - Medical Affairs, India & South Asia, ResMed)

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