According to Australian research, youngsters getting inadequate sleep are at risk of mental ailments. Researcher Nicholas Glozier of the University of Sydney said, the increase in incidence of mental ailments in the young has been puzzling health experts. The answer may lie in inadequate sleep.
He and his team studied nearly 20,000 people aged 17-24 found those who slept less than five hours a night were three times more likely than normal sleepers to become psychologically distressed in the next year. Each hour of sleep lost was linked to a 14 per cent higher risk of distress.
Professor Glozier explained, “Sleep disturbance and in particular insomnia is a predictor of later development of depression and possibly anxiety.” Less sleep also meant longer-term mental health problems. He said that sleep problems and mental problems tend to be linked. Mental ailments decrease sleep and sleep problems aggravate mental problems. He said, “What we are seeing is young adults who tend to start off with anxiety and body clock problems, move on to problems like bipolar or major depression.”
Working with researchers from the Woolcock Institute and the Brain and Mind Research Institute, Professor Glozier is working towards helping people with sleep problems by adjusting their body clocks. Patients are treated with light therapy in the mornings as well as hormones such as melatonin to help them sleep earlier.
Professor Ian Hickie is the executive director of the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Sydney and a contributor to the study. He said, “We have all worried about what is happening to young people's sleep particularly in the internet age and in changing patterns of sleep/wake cycles. This research clearly shows that reducing your sleep is likely to make you more likely to get depressed and then more likely to stay unwell over the next 12-month period.” Looking ahead Professor Hickie said, “You need to get enough physical activity during the day and you need to be physically active, you need to be alert and engaged so that you can then sleep well but you also need to regulate sleep and a common practice now staying up till two or three in the morning in association with using the Internet and other technologies and then having to rise early for school or work and having reduced sleep clearly has adverse impacts on your mental health and if you run into trouble and you have got that sleep pattern, you are likely to stay unwell. So this is an area in which a good deal of public education and preventative work could easily go forward.”
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