On Sunday, March 10, 2024, Americans will observe the time-honored tradition of setting clocks forward one hour to preserve daylight in the evening hours. Certainly, there is plenty of potential good to come out of having more daylight hours – longer days can encourage more physical activity and outdoor recreation, lower energy consumption, make us safer from accidents or crime, and positively impact the economy. Despite these individual, social, and commercial benefits, however, there are short-term drawbacks to the sleep disruption many of us experience as we lose that an hour, namely the potential impact on our mental health. Read on to learn more and find ways to spring forward without sacrificing your sleep.
What’s Sleep Got to Do with It?
When you rise after a rough night of sleep, it may be easy to detect a few of the ways in which inadequate rest can zap your energy, attention, focus, and mood. If you’re interested in the mechanics of how disrupted sleep may affect you and potentially intersect with a variety of mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, Sleep Foundation offers some insights in their November 2023 post on Mental Health and Sleep.
The relationship between sleep and mental health is not a one-way street, however. In the July 2022 Psychology Today article, Understanding the Connection Between Sleep and Mental Health, we learn that not only can insufficient sleep trigger a variety of mental health issues, but also that those conditions themselves can spur and exacerbate problems with sleep, potentially keeping you locked in a sleepless cycle. But there’s plenty of help and hope for getting your sleep back on track.
Sleep Awareness Week
Each year at the start of Daylight Saving Time, the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) observes Sleep Awareness Week, this year the week of March 10-16. According to NSF’s most recent annual Sleep in America® poll, the nation’s sleep health is strongly associated with the nation’s mental health. They found that “people with difficulties falling or staying asleep just 2 nights a week have higher levels of depressive symptoms than those without sleep difficulties,” and that 65% of poll respondents “who are dissatisfied with their sleep also experience mild or greater levels of depressive symptoms.” With a priority on helping educate and support the public in improving sleep and mental health together, NSF’s Best Slept Self® campaign offers six simple steps to take in your daytime and evening hours to ensure you get the sleep your body and mind require to support optimal health.
Log Your Zzzzs
Keeping a sleep diary may be useful in providing insights for you and potentially any medical or mental health providers you may see to address problems with sleep. NSF, as well as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM)’s Sleep Education site and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), offer printable sleep diaries you can keep by your bedside. Each one, linked here, provides instruction for tracking your sleep alongside a variety of variables such as medications, exercise, alcohol and caffeine consumption, and more.
Learn More
If you’re already dreading losing that hour of sleep this month, and you’re ready to learn more about how lost sleep affects you and what you can do about it, there are scores of articles, videos, blog posts, and resources out there to help. NSF’s Sleep Health Topics page offers a solid start on many facets of sleep education, including additional useful tips on getting enough sleep. In addition, Sleep Foundation’s Sleep Health page as well as AASM’s Sleep Education site’s Topics A-Z page offer tons of articles on dozens of topics as they relate to sleep – from age and life stage to various conditions or activities. Of course, if your sleep is troubling you to a point where you are concerned about its affect on your health, it’s always a good idea to seek out the support of a medical or mental health professional to help you get back to sound slumber and sweet dreams.
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