How Stress and Sleep Problems Are Linked with Each Other?

One of the major effects of increased stress levels is difficulty in staying asleep or falling asleep. Often individuals suffering from stress attacks wake up in the middle of the night or too early in the morning. These sleeping problems results in further worsening of the stress. Sleepy individuals often face trouble in coping with the problems and frustration during the daytime. A recent survey has shown that people getting too little time to sleep are more likely to feel dissatisfied and angry than people who sleep for 8 hours a day. According to majority of the sleep experts, losing 4 hours’ sleep have the same effect on an individual as being drunk with 0.1% blood alcohol levels does.

Stress results in increased production of CRH, a stress hormone. During a study conducted for finding out links between sleep and stress, both middle aged and young men were given same dosages of CRH before sleeping. The effects of this hormone were more significant in the middle-aged individuals. This hormone made sleeping difficult for these men and even if they managed to sleep the sleep was extremely light, which made staying asleep almost impossible.

Individuals suffering from chronic sleep deprivation, on the other hand, are at higher risk of developing depression. Depression is more common among individuals not getting enough hours of deep sleep i.e. people with slow-wave sleep. Slow-wave sleep is defined as the sleep that gets disrupted easily by CRH.

A study conducted by a team of researchers from Israel has revealed that the style adopted for coping stress might influence the quality of sleep one gets when under extreme pressure. This study involved monitoring of the stress levels of some teenage students both during the regular months at school and again during the periods of extreme academic pressure. It was found that students focusing more on emotions and fretting about developing anxiety had problems in getting adequate sleep. On the other hands, students focusing on their tasks and avoiding anxieties and emotions had much less sleep problems. According to sleep experts, to ensure that you can sleep deep for adequate time, you must start slowing down from around 2 hours before the actual time of sleeping. During these 2 hours you should not get involved in activities like studying, working, talking over the telephone etc.

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