Six Ways Sleep Is Good For Your Mental Health

No matter how much time you spend working on your physical and mental health during your waking hours, it can all be undermined if you’re not getting the rest you need. Sleep stands right alongside diet and exercise as one of the supporting pillars of good health, and it’s essential for maintaining your mental health.

To get a good night’s sleep you first have to ensure your bedroom environment is up to snuff. Putting technology aside a couple of hours before you go to bed is important, as is avoiding too much booze and caffeine late in the day. A good-quality mattress is also vital, because nothing will wreck your night’s rest as effectively as an uncomfortable, unsupportive mattress. A TEMPUR mattress moulds to your shape to help distribute your weight evenly. TEMPUR mattresses also come with a 10-year guarantee. That, in turn, could benefit your mental health in the following six ways.

Sleep can reduce stress

Stress and sleep have a deeply intertwined relationship. Stress can lead to insomnia, which in turn can increase the amount of stress you experience, whereas a solid night’s sleep can actually reduce stress. Several studies have found that people who sleep eight or more hours a night have lower reported stress levels than those who sleep for less than eight hours. Furthermore, many of the most common symptoms of stress – such as feeling overwhelmed or irritable – are reduced by sleeping well.

Sleep increases your resilience

Resilience is your ability to bounce back from setbacks in both the short and long term, and it’s one of the most important aspects of good mental health. If even small problems set you back for a few days, life can get on top of you very quickly. Although some people seem to have more natural resilience, it isn’t a skill you’re born with – you can work on your resilience and one vital way to improve it is with consistent high-quality sleep, which gives your body the energy to tackle and surmount problems faster.

Bad sleep knocks your emotional balance off

It’s no coincidence that people who aren’t sleeping well tend to be a tad cranky when they wake up. Research has found that even one bad night’s sleep hampers your brain’s ability to regulate your emotions, leading to you struggling to process what’s important and what isn’t, and a tendency to overreact to situations you’d deal with more calmly after a proper night’s rest.

Getting enough sleep prevents burn-out

High achievers are the people most susceptible to burn-out, which is complete mental and physical exhaustion following sustained periods of stress and fatigue at work. Burn-out is not a trifling issue that can be overcome with a long weekend or a lie-in: it can have a serious negative impact on your health, and damage your productivity at work for months. So, if your rest is taking a hit because of how busy you are at work, consider the long-term implications. The best way to prevent burn-out is to give yourself enough time to switch off and recover each night.

You’re smarter when you sleep well

Getting your eight hours in on a consistent basis is just about the best way to ensure your brain will be firing on all cylinders when you’re awake. Studies have linked a whole host of mental benefits to sleep – your memory improves, as do your problem-solving capabilities and your ability to think more creatively, and you react more quickly and make fewer mistakes. Conversely, a lack of sleep has been linked to more procrastinating, and one study found that going 17 or more hours without sleep makes you about as mentally effective as a drunk person.

Poor sleep can contribute to loneliness

Feeling lonely isn’t as simple as being isolated – many people get on just fine without other people. It’s more about feeling that your relationships with other people are somehow inadequate. Not sleeping well can be linked to this feeling, with studies showing that people are more likely to say they lack companionship and feel left out more often if their sleep is of low quality.

Transform your sleep with the TEMPUR Sleep System, everything you need to get a good night’s sleep. That’s pillows, quilt and a mattress protector included in the mattress price.