The link between sleep deprivation and psychiatric disorders
Recently, research by a team at the University of California, Berkeley, uncovered a link between sleep deprivation and psychiatric disorders. Previously, it was thought that psychiatric disorders caused sleep deprivation, and not the other way around, but it appears now that sleep deprivation may create symptoms that mimic psychiatric disorders or may be partially responsible for them.
Color me completely unsurprised. Sleep deprivation has already been linked to heart disease, obesity and early stage Type 2 diabetes, due to its undermining functions like metabolic control. I would have been more surprised if it didn’t affected our mental health.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Guess it’s good to get the stamp of legitimacy with the research behind what most people already know intuitively. In fact, lack of sleep can trigger a bipolar person’s next high or low, as can sleep mess-ups from jet lag. All I know is that I felt like half myself for the first four years of motherhood because I never got a full uninterrupted night’s sleep (three kids in four years). I was hard on myself for being short tempered, but that was before my dx of depression too, so it all fits. Thanks for writing about it. ~Stacie