How are depression and sleep disturbances related?

Depres­sion is a seri­ous men­tal ill­ness that neg­a­tive­ly affects a per­son­’s per­for­mance and qual­i­ty of life. Con­trary to pop­u­lar myths and mis­con­cep­tions, depres­sion can­not be cured by hard phys­i­cal labor, work, or sports. It is caused by a vio­la­tion of bio­chem­i­cal process­es in the human body. Look­ing at the patient, it is not always pos­si­ble to deter­mine that he is sick, since oth­ers may not notice changes in the psy­che. One of the com­mon symp­toms of depres­sion is insom­nia.

The impact of depression on a person’s life

Despite wide­spread infor­ma­tion about depres­sion and grow­ing con­fi­dence in psy­chother­a­pists, many peo­ple still see it as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of lazi­ness, nat­ur­al pes­simism, or an unwill­ing­ness to look at life pos­i­tive­ly. Some peo­ple think that “it did­n’t hap­pen before”, but it’s not. Many symp­toms were ignored for a long time, and it was not accept­ed to seek psy­chother­a­peu­tic help.

Depres­sion has a num­ber of symp­toms that are not imme­di­ate­ly noticed by oth­ers. Its emo­tion­al man­i­fes­ta­tions include depressed mood, anx­i­ety, guilt, fear for the life of loved ones, lack of inter­est in favorite things. A per­son with a depres­sive dis­or­der is often prone to gloomy thoughts, includ­ing sui­ci­dal ones. He is con­stant­ly haunt­ed by a feel­ing of his own use­less­ness and mean­ing­less­ness of exis­tence.

Depres­sive dis­or­der also man­i­fests itself in a range of phys­i­cal symp­toms, and may mas­quer­ade as fre­quent colds, heart or stom­ach prob­lems. His fre­quent com­pan­ion is also insom­nia. From gloomy thoughts, a per­son can often wake up and feel the neg­a­tive effects of lack of sleep.

Why does depression interfere with sleep?

Prop­er and healthy sleep is one of the main com­po­nents of a healthy lifestyle. Even one sleep­less night can seri­ous­ly affect the per­for­mance and men­tal activ­i­ty of a per­son. With a depres­sive dis­or­der, the lev­el of stress hor­mones in the body increas­es, which leads to insom­nia and trou­ble falling asleep.

Inabil­i­ty to fall asleep, fre­quent awak­en­ings, inter­rupt­ed sleep are fre­quent com­pan­ions of a depres­sive dis­or­der. The less a per­son sleeps, the worse his state of health dur­ing the day. The result is irri­tabil­i­ty, decreased men­tal and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, and increased blood pres­sure. When a per­son can­not fall asleep, he is haunt­ed by gloomy thoughts, con­flict and stress­ful sit­u­a­tions scroll through his head, and night­mares occur. Chron­ic insom­nia can lead to fear of falling asleep. And in the morn­ing a per­son wakes up bro­ken and tired.

The inabil­i­ty to recov­er at night leads to a num­ber of unpleas­ant con­se­quences. The first one is overeat­ing. The body needs to recu­per­ate, and a per­son tries to get the miss­ing ener­gy from sweets or cof­fee. A sleep-deprived per­son los­es atten­tion and the abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate on work. Insuf­fi­cient rest at night neg­a­tive­ly affects the appear­ance of a per­son — cir­cles appear under the eyes, the skin con­di­tion wors­ens. Sleep-deprived peo­ple have reduced immu­ni­ty and an increased risk of colds and infec­tious dis­eases.

The most effec­tive way to treat depres­sive dis­or­ders is psy­chother­a­py. In addi­tion to cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­py, it includes med­ica­tion and rec­om­men­da­tions for revis­ing the dai­ly rou­tine. Peo­ple who suf­fer from insom­nia with depres­sion are advised to go to bed and wake up at the same time, do not overeat before bed, and avoid cof­fee and alco­holic bev­er­ages. To nor­mal­ize falling asleep, it is nec­es­sary to main­tain a com­fort­able tem­per­a­ture in the bed­room and stop using elec­tron­ic devices about 30 min­utes before bed­time.

Psychotherapy in the treatment of depression and insomnia

In order to suc­cess­ful­ly treat insom­nia, the depres­sive dis­or­der itself must be treat­ed. In mod­ern psy­chother­a­py, a num­ber of tech­niques are used to cor­rect human behav­ior and nor­mal­ize con­di­tions for a night’s rest. Among these tech­niques is stim­u­lus con­trol, in which the patient needs to go to bed only when he feels sleepy. Var­i­ous meth­ods of relax­ation and med­i­ta­tion are wide­ly used.

A good night’s sleep also involves review­ing sleep rit­u­als, such as avoid­ing using a smart­phone, com­put­er or watch­ing TV, drink­ing cof­fee, alco­holic bev­er­ages or tobac­co, ensur­ing that the bed is as com­fort­able and com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. For severe forms of insom­nia, a com­bi­na­tion of behav­ioral ther­a­py and med­ica­tion is pos­si­ble.

Depres­sive dis­or­der can­not be cured by willpow­er, change of scenery, or phys­i­cal labor. Numer­ous calls to smile, shake things up and think pos­i­tive­ly do not affect the patient either. An effec­tive way to treat it, in addi­tion to pills, is psy­chother­a­py. The most com­mon treat­ment for depres­sive dis­or­ders is a com­bi­na­tion of cog­ni­tive behav­ioral and med­ica­tion ther­a­pies.

There are sev­er­al types of ther­a­py for depres­sive dis­or­ders. This is cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral, the pur­pose of which is to change the patien­t’s behav­ior pat­terns and inter­nal atti­tudes that served as a trig­ger for the devel­op­ment of the dis­ease, inter­per­son­al, aimed at revis­ing rela­tion­ships and estab­lish­ing new, more har­mo­nious rela­tion­ships with oth­ers, and psy­cho­dy­nam­ic, focused on resolv­ing the patien­t’s inter­nal con­flicts, which also could become trig­gers for the devel­op­ment of a depres­sive state.

The atti­tude towards psy­chother­a­peu­tic treat­ment in soci­ety is grad­u­al­ly chang­ing. Peo­ple are less like­ly to asso­ciate it with puni­tive treat­ment and less and less believe that med­i­cines can turn a per­son into a “veg­etable”. Meth­ods of “relax­ation” with the help of smok­ing and alco­hol are not able to solve psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems, but only exac­er­bate them. Not every­one is ready to share their prob­lems with rel­a­tives or friends, trig­ger the dis­ease and do not attach impor­tance to the symp­toms of a depres­sive dis­or­der. And insom­nia is one of the most seri­ous symp­toms of a per­son­’s men­tal and phys­i­cal prob­lems. There­fore, psy­chother­a­pists use an inte­grat­ed approach aimed at elim­i­nat­ing the main cause of the vio­la­tion of the dai­ly rou­tine and the occur­rence of insom­nia.