The 7 Most Important Effects Of Insomnia On Mental Health
The brain is an organ that houses endless mysteries. Of all of them, sleep is one of the processes that has aroused the greatest curiosity since ancient times, where it was understood as a bridge between the earthly and the divine. Like an open door to the beyond.
We spend between a third and a quarter of our existence entangled in its fine threads, essentially yielding during the night to the drowsiness that guides us towards its most inhospitable territories. And we all sleep, since it is a universal necessity to survive (and a pleasure for most).
However, many people complain of poor quality sleep, because they either have difficulty falling asleep or wake up many times throughout the night. There are also those who wake up earlier than expected, and all of them tend to feel very tired.
This article addresses the consequences of insomnia on mental health , since it is known that commitment in this area is one of the most important indicators for the inference of psychological suffering. Let’s see it, then, in detail.
It is understood by insomnia any alteration in the sleeping process, both in its beginning (difficulty accessing sleep), its continuation (constant interruptions) and/or its completion (wake up too early); which limits quality of life and substantially interferes with daily activity.
In this sense, three basic dimensions could be distinguished: duration (total time spent asleep, for which there is great variability in terms of interindividual differences), continuity (which is equivalent to the persistence of the process throughout of sufficient time to obtain benefits) and depth (associated with physiology and neural activation). Any of them can be acutely compromised at some point in the life cycle.
Roughly speaking, Sleep tends to be divided into two distinct stages: REM and non-REM (nREM) The latter involves a series of phases (from 1 to 4) in which a progressive slowing of the activity carried out by the central nervous system (CNS) is observed, while in the first (which extends 25% of the time ) an electrical increase or hyperactivation similar to wakefulness (with eye movements) would be appreciated. Both alternate in 90-minute cycles throughout the night, in which the REM phase extends, and are necessary for the relevant neural rest to occur.
The three forms of insomnia that have been cited represent, in their most intimate nature, a difficulty accessing REM sleep in a relevant way (especially when it becomes difficult to stay asleep for the time required to complete the successive cycles). As the situation drags on, a myriad of complications emerge on the physical, cognitive, and emotional levels. It is important to keep in mind that a third of people recognize specific problems when sleeping, and that 10% meet the criteria for the diagnosis of insomnia. As can be deduced, it is not a strange situation, since a significant percentage of the general population identifies with it.
Let’s now look at the specific impact of insomnia on psychological health, bringing together the seven most important consequences that can arise from it. When any of them occur, it may be interesting to visit a health specialist.
Main effects of insomnia on mental health
The relationship between insomnia and mental health is bidirectional: when one of them is affected, the other is also affected, regardless of which is considered the cause and which is the effect. These are complications that are sometimes quite serious, and in some cases even involve an objective risk to life. That is why the treatment of this problem is important, and should never be considered a minor or accessory issue. We delve into all of this in detail.
One of the common consequences of poor quality sleep is fluctuating mood, and there is evidence that insomnia and difficulties regulating emotion have common physiological bases
In this way, poor sleep can be related to depressive and anxious symptoms, as well as notable irritability. In fact, today we know that those who suffer from a condition of this nature see its intensity worsen when they also have problems enjoying a restful sleep. Pain as a symptom deserves special mention: its presence disrupts sleep, while insomnia promotes a reduction in the pain threshold (becoming a much more intense and difficult to control experience).
At the process level, it is known that people with insomnia tend to interpret the adverse events they face in a more negative way, and that they also have difficulties when trying to extract the positive aspects of daily experience. This problem is associated with the hyperfunction of the amygdala (limbic region responsible for processing different emotions) and the functional decrease in its connection with the prefrontal cortex , on which the cognitive mechanisms through which we deal with the turbulence inherent to life “depend”. All of this facilitates a certain tendency towards frustration, in cases where daily vicissitudes cannot be resolved with the desired immediacy.
On the other hand, there are a few studies that suggest that the accumulation of sleepless nights substantially reduces emotional intelligence evaluated through self-reports. From this it could be deduced a concrete erosion in the basic ability to identify, recognize and communicate what is happening inside us ; as well as inferring the states of others when interacting with them. In any case, it would be a reversible effect over time, since a restful rest would restore their previous level of “functioning” (given that intelligence is a relatively stable trait throughout life).
Finally, many studies indicate that people with insomnia may see the cognitive process of decision-making and behavioral inhibition (both dependent on the prefrontal cortex) altered; which would interact with depression, anxiety and/or irritability. The result implies the display of passive or impulsive action patterns , which are associated with a greater probability of failure when searching for solutions to a problem. This is why it is never recommended to address matters of great importance under the influence of insomnia or adverse emotional states.
2. Memory problems
Interference in memory domains is often a recurring complaint among those who have sleep problems. The most common thing is that declarative memory is especially altered, and especially the procedural subtype, which would limit the ability to recall events from the recent past.
In turn, an erosion in working memory linked to insomnia (a function that allows the temporary storage of information for use during a specific task) has been described. In the last case It is very common that difficulties arise in understanding a written/spoken text of a certain length or to successfully develop activities that require storing information in the background.
REM sleep is a key physiological process for maintaining memory, as it optimizes the neural process through which we consolidate information in the long-term store and/or eliminate accessory and useless data. It is basic, therefore, for learning; from which it is understood that spending a night awake to study is usually an inadequate and counterproductive strategy. In this way, a subject who has difficulty sleeping may report difficulties when trying to acquire new knowledge, as well as when applying it later (such as in an exam, for example).
Memory problems and insomnia often occur together in older people , and it is possible that they share some physiological basis (such as calcification of the pineal gland, which could also contribute to cortical dementias). Finally, the solid relationship between insomnia and memory decline may be due to the use of sedative/hypnotic psychotropic drugs (benzodiazepines, eg) that are prescribed for the treatment of sleep disorders, since we know that their prolonged or excessive administration precipitates harmful effects in such area (anterograde amnesia or serious blockage when generating new memories).
3. Attention problems
Along with memory, attention is the process that is most commonly compromised when restorative sleep is made difficult. The orientation response towards stimuli that abruptly burst into the perceptual field is usually fundamentally damaged, which increases response times (the person seems absorbed and slowed down). It has also been possible to observe a deterioration in alternating attention, that is, the ability to “change” the focus when two tasks occur (one after another) in short periods of time.
Finally, this decline can be generalized to the sustained and selective subtype In this case, problems would become explicit in maintaining attentional resources during the development of a task whose long extension requires it, as well as in discriminating in a complex environment which of the stimuli are relevant to the intended objective and which are not. In this way, when the person sees himself immersed in an environment saturated by several elements that compete with each other for his attention, a feeling of overflow would arise (appreciable when managing such a large volume of information).
Attention deficits also imply a greater risk of accidents , as there would be an increase in distractibility and a loss of reflexes. For this reason, anyone who is a regular driver of any vehicle must take special care when suffering from insomnia.
4. Sexual problems
Insomnia can be related to deficits in the sexual sphere, especially in men. The most common thing is that it is expressed at the erectile level, with problems achieving a firm swelling of the penis that makes penetration possible. The most notable difficulty is found when the person lives with other additional clinical symptoms; such as sleep apnea, “delayed” circadian rhythm (falling asleep and waking up too late) or restless legs syndrome (an urgent and distressing need to move the legs to relieve apparent tension that is building up in them).
Certain hypotheses suggest as a possible cause for erectile dysfunction a noticeable reduction in testosterone in blood circulation which has been evident among men who have difficulty falling asleep properly or who wake up many times throughout the night (especially in the second half).
And there is evidence that this hormone’s production increases during the beginning of sleep (reaching its peak in the first REM phase), and that its levels are higher while asleep than when awake. Insomnia would hinder its synthesis, which would affect erection (since it is essential for this process), and would also contribute to the increase in cardiopathologies in this population (a risk that is accentuated in the case of insomniacs when comparisons are made with those who rest well).
Hallucinations are abnormal perceptions that involve stimuli that are not in the perceptual field, in any sensory modality. There are many studies that indicate that insomnia in extreme cases can cause very diverse hallucinations, even in people without pathology of any kind.
Some of those that accumulate the most evidence are hypnagogic (in the process from wakefulness to sleep) and hypnopompic (in the transition from sleep to wakefulness), as well as those that occur in the context of sleep paralysis. All They are much more frequent when you have not slept adequately in the previous days
In people with a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, insomnia is considered a risk factor for the flare-up or onset of an acute episode. In fact, it is one of the main symptoms of the prodromal stage, which precedes the articulation of the “definitive” condition (and which lasts for months or even years). Such insomnia would anticipate the onset of paranoid delusions in some patients, which could be explained by an increase in the level of dopamine after the first sleepless night (a compensation mechanism to cushion the deficit in cognitive functions that usually occurs in this case). moment).
6. Reduced vitality
The loss of vitality, at the extreme of which is fatigue, has as its basic cause (in the general population) poor quality sleep. It is a common circumstance, which coincides with the total percentage of people with occasional difficulty sleeping fully (between 20% and 40%, especially in women). The problem results in high daytime sleepiness and loss of productivity, and is even associated with depressive feelings and deterioration of memory or attention (which we referred to above).
The fatigue associated with insomnia presents with a perception of intense loss of energy, generalized weakness, feeling unwell, and erosion of performance in everyday tasks Among all the problems that disturb the integrity of sleep or its structure, apnea is perhaps the one that most consistently triggers it (respiratory blockage that causes a series of brief microawakenings, which interrupt the active sleep cycle before reaching the phases REM repairers).
7. Increased risk of Alzheimer’s
The relationship between insomnia and Alzheimer’s has been known since the 90s, although it has been in the last decade that knowledge about this issue has increased. Thanks to neurophysiology studies, and with the invaluable help of neuroimaging techniques or analysis of postmortem brain tissue, we have come to the conclusion that One function of sleep is to “clean up” the residues of neuronal activity Throughout the day, being awake implies a production of proteins in the central nervous system whose persistence is toxic, but which is “emptied” every time we sleep to avoid excess or accumulation.
Of all of them, it has been shown that the amyloid beta protein is undoubtedly the one that has the most explanatory importance, given that it is one of the elementary anatomopathological bases of such frequent cortical dementia. Well, it has been corroborated that insomnia promotes its accumulation in the medium/long term, enhancing one of its most important physiological risk factors (according to the available evidence).
