Does insomnia cause depression? Does depression cause insomnia? Chronic insomnia is strongly associated with mood disorders, but which way does the causality run?
I think it's likely that cause-and-effect can go in either direction, but surprisingly, there is little experimental research on the connection between sleep and emotions. What there is mostly tracks the effects of enforced sleep deprivation. A typical experiment restricts the amount of sleep subjects are allowed to get over days or weeks, then measures the resulting cognitive and emotional effects. Such research shows that sleep restriction tends to make people less optimistic and less sociable. One study at the University of Pennsylvania found that subjects limited to four to five hours of sleep per night for one week reported feeling more stressed, angry and sad. Their moods improved dramatically when they resumed normal sleep.
It's difficult to run experiments in the other direction -- that is, to make people stressed, angry and sad for days or weeks and note the effect on their sleeping ability -- but virtually every human being can vouch that emotional upset can severely impact sleep.
While sleep is clearly vital to emotional well-being, what is it, exactly, about sleep that is so necessary? As it turns out, mood disorders are strongly linked to abnormal patterns of dreaming. Rosalind Cartwright, Ph.D., a leading sleep and dream researcher at Chicago's Rush Medical Center and author of The Twenty-four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives, has shown that individuals who dream and remember their dreams heal more quickly from depressive moods associated with divorce. Rubin Naiman, Ph.D., a sleep and dream expert on the clinical faculty of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, believes that "dream loss" rather than sleep loss per se, is "the most critical overlooked socio-cultural force" in the development of depression.
This is important information because many medications used to help people sleep also suppress dreaming. These drugs have become some of the most widely used in our society. Many antidepressant drugs suppress dreaming as well.
I think mainstream research tends to discount the value of dreaming because the experience is utterly subjective. Dreaming is a phenomenon of purely individual consciousness, and consequently impossible to thoroughly deconstruct by a community of researchers. But dreaming matters.
If you dislike or even fear dreaming because the emotional content of your dreams tends to be negative, keep in mind that "bad dreams" may serve a vital function. Consider Dr. Naiman's view that dreaming is "a kind of psychological yoga," that contributes to emotional wellness. He says that dreams "in the first part of the night appear to process and diffuse residual negative emotion from the waking day; dreams later in the night then integrate this material into one's sense of self."
The bottom line: There is good reason to believe you must get sufficient sleep, and embrace rather than suppress your dreams, if you want to experience better moods. If you have difficulty sleeping or are not getting enough sleep or sleep of good quality, you need to learn the basics of sleep hygiene, make appropriate changes, and possibly consult a sleep expert. You might also keep a dream journal at your bedside, which will help you develop the habit of recalling your dreams upon waking, which in turn can help you to embrace and value dreaming.
For more on gentle, natural ways to achieve and maintain emotional well-being, visit my website: SpontaneousHappiness.com.
Andrew Weil, M.D., is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the editorial director of www.DrWeil.com. Become a fan on Facebook, follow Dr. Weil on Twitter, and check out his Daily Health Tips Blog.
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Sleep and Mental Health - Harvard Health Publications
Can sleep deprivation be the cause of mental illness? - Telegraph
Can a Lack of Sleep Cause Psychiatric Disorders?: Scientific ...
Discovery Health "Sleep and Dreams"
Sleep Deprivation and Depression: What's the Link?
Depression-related sleep disorders at MedicineNet.com
Sleep and depression | Psychology Today
In Sleepless Nights, a Hope for Treating Depression - NYTimes.com
Lack of Sleep Linked With Depression, Weight Gain and Even Death ...
That sounds kinda like what they were doing at harvard in the 50's 60s with pyscadelic drugs.. Links between those drugs and how they could affect emotions and dreams and mental well being.... Too bad someone Sold the men who were doing the research down the river and ruined their lives... I wonder who would have done such a thing?
How and when is it going to end? Does it have to reach the point where we kill each other off, just the be rid of the annoyance of each other's existence? Well, maybe. Things certainly seem to be headed that way.
However, there's a phrase: It's darkest before dawn. The dark part is our increasingly self-centered attitude toward ourselves, manifesting in near total lack of care and concern for others. The dawn part is the emergence of a new attitude that, by necessity, considers others. The former ultimately leads to annihilation, the latter to universal peace and well-being. Annihilation we can imagine, but can we imagine universal peace and well-being? Perhaps the better question is: Do we have a choice?
Today I love my dreams. They are the best part of my life.
Dreams? Mine are pretty wild and often disturbing. For many Americans, bad dreams and nightmares aren’t as bad as waking reality in our nation these days. I call it a “low-grade” nightmare, one you can’t wake up from.
Depression? I think medication works best when depression originates with brain chemistry disorders. Not so effective, if at all, when the depression is situational. Anti-depressants don’t make reality go away. You need different kinds of drugs for that.
Juvenon is one of the only things that has made me feel better , wish I could afford his other supplements !
Do the medications suppress dreaming -- or just the memory of the dreams?
Perhaps the dreams are still there, just not as easily remembered in waking consciousness.
what a thought is made of?
It's only after all the noise settles down and our brains are operating at a more introspective level, that we are aware of them. But yes, it is the images and dream scenarios going on in the subconsciousness of our minds that help us to form our waking (and sleeping) conscious thoughts.
i cannot sleep
i cannot sleep
depression, deep
so if i stumble
into dream or two
an escape from
that which
makes me blue
There is another type of dream, a dream that does not involve a story line, but just snippets, usually of an activity that someone is working on in the real world and its usually a repetitive dream,and once again, that dream also has value since people can practice challenges by this visualization-like dreams. I have solved engineering problems in such dreams, solved math problems and improved my skiing ability in such snippet dreams.
Being estranged from nature we also find ourselves estranged from natures Creator and this brings with it an arrogance that shows itself in nationalism and a stubborn pride in our achievements that will lead to our ultimate downfall. We are so smart and special in our own estimation that we will undoubtably race to the edge of the cliff and having no insight or vision to prevent it take the dive like so many lemmings before us.
The wisdom that might prevent this from happening is scorned and despised by the world in its haste to make a profit. Treating each other and the earth that gives us sustenance with respect and kindness is foreign to our master plan it just doesn't pay the way greed and oppression do. We have clearly chosen which side we are on and we will have to eventually pay the piper and reap what we have sown.