Sleep by the Numbers
One of the most common symptoms of depression is change in sleep patterns. For some people with depression, this means sleeping too much. For most with depression, it means sleeping too little. Many people with depression have a lot of trouble falling asleep because they’re replaying events over and over in their head. It’s almost like a movie that they can’t turn off. It may be that their body just feels tense and unable to relax. Once they do fall asleep, many people with depression find that they wake up a lot or they wake up too early and can’t get back to sleep. It’s incredibly frustrating.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep per night. About 7-19% of American adults aren’t getting enough sleep or rest everyday and about 50-70 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders. The impacts of these statistics are many. Chronic sleep deprivation makes depression worse and raises risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and obesity.
Why is sleep so important?
Just by living our day to day lives, we create wear and tear on our brains and bodies, which must be repaired. If you’re struggling with depression, there are even more repairs to make. Our brains and bodies can only make these repairs when we are asleep, so you likely need even more sleep than usual. Think of your body and brain like computers that have to recharge and update themselves regularly in order to function properly.
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLI), even missing out on one or two hours of sleep can make it hard to think, pay attention, remember things, manage our emotions, and learn. If you’re sleep deprived, you’re probably catching every cold going around. That’s because sleep deprivation also impairs immune functioning. Finally, in case you’re still not convinced of how vital sufficient sleep is, here’s one more fact for you. Sleep deprivation has been cited as a significant factor in tragic car, train, aviation, and nuclear accidents. Driving while sleep deprived is as or more dangerous than driving drunk.
