Monday, October 10, 2016 is World Mental Health Day. With this important date comes a reminder that mental health affects us all. It can bring you great joy and it can cause you great harm if it falls out of balance. A part of helping to prevent mental health problems, there are certain steps you can take. Primary among them includes educating yourself about lack of sleep and your mind.
Many people think about the physical impact of not getting enough rest at night. However, the connection between lack of sleep and your mind is a very powerful one. One night without a sleeping well can be a struggle. However, continually being sleep deprived can raise some critical challenges to your mental health.
Among the main problems is that people don’t recognize the link between a lack of sleep and your mind. People simply don’t value sleep enough to go out of their way to obtain it. After all, for many of us, getting enough sleep every night would require a number of lifestyle changes. We’d need to be able to start winding down earlier. We’d need to go to bed and wake up at the same time every night and morning. We’d need to eat properly, hydrate well and avoid stimulants and alcohol. We even need to turn off all devices at least an hour before bedtime.
The outcome is a lifestyle that many of us find inconvenient. That inconvenience is enough to label the change as being impossible and is a direct reflection of the low value we are actually giving sleep in our lives. Certainly, we complain that we are tired and we dislike the low levels of energy and motivation. However, for most of us, changing our lives to suit better sleep is not something we have chosen to do.
This trend is taking its toll. Sleep is vital to memory, clear thought, insight and learning. It is necessary to cope with stress, reduce anxiety and prevent depression. It helps the body to function as it should, but it also allows the mind to focus its energies where it should. It gives the body and mind the opportunity for repairing and restoring itself right down to a cellular level.
Sleep is not a luxury. It is a vital function that is as important as eating and breathing. We know the impact of poor diet and low oxygen on mental health. On World Mental Health Day, it’s time to launch a recognition of the importance of sleep, too.
To help to build a stronger routine of restful sleep, speak with your doctor about the right lifestyle changes you can make, and using Somnaprin to help to set your sleeping and waking clock.
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