Science and medicine are only at the start for understanding the genetic and biochemical basis Mental illness, a broad term used to define conditions such as anxiety, depression, and mood and psychotic disorders. It has become very important to find treatments for these conditions as millions of people from around the world are suffering from them. While several individuals seek a diagnosis from medicine, a large population of scientific evidence is suggesting the antidote lies in our most basic human functions: sleep.
Check out this detailed explanation by MIC:
Disrupted sleep such as insomnia can actually help us predict mental illness issues and fixing problems related to sleep can help treat them. Unfortunately, most clinics around the globe have been ignoring the effects of sleep on mental illness. Instead, drugs and medications are seen as the solution.
To understand the relationship between sleep and mental illness in the brain, we have to understand the biology of sleep and Circadian rhythms.
Circadian rhythms are innate and lie in the genomes of almost every living thing on the planet. As humans, our physiology is structured around our everyday cycle of activity and sleep. During the active phase, our organs need to be prepared for the intake, processing, and uptake of nutrients, as our energy use is high and food and water are consumed. During the sleep phase, however, even though the energy use and digestive processes decrease, important processes such as cellular repair, memory consolidation, toxin clearance, and information processing occur in the brain.
Issues in sleep such as jet-lag, insomnia, and shift-work disrupt the Circadian rhythms therefore messing with our ability to do the right thing at the right time. This can result in several health issues including some of the ones below:
Circadian rhythm disruption was noticed in 80% of patients with schizophrenia. Moreover, it has been recognized to be a factor for several mental issues. Surprisingly, sleep deprivation is largely ignored in the matter.
The circadian timing and sleep system is a result of interactions between several brain regions, hormones, and neurotransmitters. Because of this, irregularity in any of these neurotransmitter systems can have a great impact on both sleep and Circadian timing. With this information, it is easy to see why so many things are correlated to each other in the brain. Complex interactions between neurotransmitters and the overlapping of systems with each other in the brain lead to several illnesses, both mental and physical. It is a common fact that sleep disruptions happen before episodes of depression. Moreover, individuals recognized as "at risk" for bipolar disorder and child-onset schizophrenia at several times show problems with sleep before any clinical detection of an illness.
Right now, studies are being done to fix this problem. However, to take care of ourselves, maybe it's time to really focus on the 8-hours of sleep rule. Try not to pull all-nighters during the next semester of college. Maybe if you are on top of your game, both health and academic-wise, you won't be stressed or depressed. Some problems are preventable and I'm sure you all know the saying, "Prevention is better than cure."