The Sleep Connection

Do you remember having difficulty sleeping when you were a kid? Did you have frequent bouts of sleep loss and nightmares? If you were suffering from depression or anxiety, those sleep disorders may have been telltale signs of your condition. A recent study revealed that sleep problems early in life may lead to mental health illnesses later in life, citing previous studies that suggest that depressed people suffer from sleep deprivation.

While studying how mental illnesses emerge, scientist at Goldsmiths, University of London and Tel Aviv University disclosed that people who suffered sleep disorders in their childhood are at greater risk of developing mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or schizophrenia as well as autism in adulthood. These findings further underscore the importance of getting regular hours of sleep as well as early detection and treatment of sleep disorders.

(Depression)

(Anxiety)

(Schizophrenia)

If you remember waking up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart from a dream that you were being chased by unknown enemy a couple of times when you were little, read on. The research said nightmares and night terrors could be warning signs of schizophrenia, a condition in which a person has a distorted sense of reality, in the future. It should be noted that a nightmare and a night terror are different from each other. A nightmare can be remembered after a person wakes up, while a night terror cannot.

(Nightmare)

(Night Terror)

Did you have a trouble getting eight hours of sleep in your younger years? The scientists suggested that shorter hours of sleep during early life indicated likelihood of a bipolar disorder, a condition in which a person experiences extreme changes in mood.

(Bipolar Disorder)

While mental health diseases need more careful discussion, the good news is that you can do something about poor quality of sleep. You can start by not fighting off sleep once your eyes start to feel heavy. You can also set a sleeping time and stick to it, no more checking of text messages or Facebook updates before bed. If you still find yourself tossing and turning in bed or counting sheep, you may try taking a warm bath, listening to mellow, relaxing music or reading a book.

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