Sleeping Less Than 8 Hours Can Drive Anxiety And Depression

People with anxiety and/or depression often think that they have some moral defect to cause their ruminating, intrusive thoughts. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. It is not your fault, at all. There are many factors that modern Westerners simply don’t take into account.

Sleeping less than the eight hours per night is associated with intrusive, repetitive thoughts like those seen in anxiety or depression, says new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

SEE: Scientists Discover Which Neurotransmitter In Brain Stops Unwanted Thoughts

The researchers discovered that regular sleep disruptions are associated with difficulty in shifting one’s attention away from negative information. This may mean that inadequate sleep is part of what makes negative intrusive thoughts stick around and interfere with people’s lives.

Binghamton Professor of Psychology Meredith Coles and Jacob Nota assessed the timing and duration of sleep in individuals with moderate to high levels of repetitive negative thoughts (e.g., worry and rumination). The research participants were exposed to different pictures intended to trigger an emotional response, and researchers tracked their attention through their eye movements.

Coles said:

We found that people in this study have some tendencies to have thoughts get stuck in their heads, and their elevated negative thinking makes it difficult for them to disengage with the negative stimuli that we exposed them to…

While other people may be able to receive negative information and move on, the participants had trouble ignoring it.

These negative thoughts are believed to leave people vulnerable to different types of psychological disorders, such as anxiety or depression, said Coles.

“We realized over time that this might be important — this repetitive negative thinking is relevant to several different disorders like anxiety, depression and many other things,” she said. “This is novel in that we’re exploring the overlap between sleep disruptions and the way they affect these basic processes that help in ignoring those obsessive negative thoughts.”

If their collective theories are correct, their research could potentially allow psychologists to treat anxiety and depression by shifting patients’ sleep cycles to a healthier time or making it more likely a patient will sleep when they get in bed.

The paper, “Shorter sleep duration and longer sleep onset latency are related to difficulty disengaging attention from negative emotional images in individuals with elevated transdiagnostic repetitive negative thinking” was published in ScienceDirect.

Whereas scientists are often interested in finding biological fault in emotional or highly sensitive people (e.g. it’s your genes, it’s brain chemicals), studies like this should offer hope to the weary that you may need more rest, relaxation, less pressure – and to just go easier on yourself.

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DISCLAIMER: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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