How Sleep Quality Affects Your Anxiety levels

“A Good Laugh And Great Sleep Quality Are The Two Best Cures For Anything.”

There is a close connection between sleep quality and anxiety. Insufficient or poor sleep may trigger stress, irritability, and anxiety, while proper sleep can improve overall health and well-being. It may also be noted that anxiety can cause sleep problems, which can then result in an unending cycle of anxiety affecting sleep quality and sleep quality affecting anxiety levels.

Different treatments like better sleeping habits, behavioral changes, medications, and diet and lifestyle changes, etc. can help overcome sleeping problems as well as associated mood disorders like anxiety, depression, etc.

Causes of poor sleep induced anxiety

Discussed below are varied ways in which poor sleep quality can affect the anxiety levels:

• Changes in hormone levels: The body manages hormone levels when sleeping. It can regulate only when the body is healthy and sleep is needed for the body to remain healthy. Thus, sleep quality problems can increase risk of imbalance of hormones. Eventually hormonal problems can cause anxiety levels to rise.
• Body stress: Stress is one of the primary causes of sleep quality problems. Sleep helps decrease stress; it is the time when the body relaxes tense muscles, repairs itself, and resolves varied problems induced by excess stress. Lack of sleep can cause buildup of stress, reduce body’s ability to cope with stress, and trigger or worsen anxiety levels.
• Increased adrenaline levels: Sometimes, the body may release excess amounts of adrenaline even in the absence of stress. Such abnormal release of adrenaline for prolonged periods can cause the body to remain on edge for abnormal durations which can then adversely affect anxiety levels.
• Brain stress: Deprivation of sleep can also adversely affect brain function. Increased stress on brain can then trigger anxiety and other emotional and mental issues like hallucinations, etc. Just like the body, the brain neurons also regenerate when sleeping. Poor sleep can thus prevent or hamper this process of regeneration. Prolonged sleep problems can adversely affect and damage entire sections or the brain or stop the firing or neurons.
• Physiological problems: Lack of sleep can trigger different physical symptoms like backaches, tingling in arms and legs, headaches, and weird bodily sensations, etc. This can then worsen sleep quality and also cause anxiety levels to rise.

Treatment of poor sleep induced anxiety

Getting more good quality sleep is the best solution to reduce sleep related anxiety problems. However, better sleep and refreshed body is not going to produce instant results of anxiety alleviation. Patients need to have good quality sleep for many weeks and months, before anxiety levels reduce.

People who have trouble sleeping can follow below listed steps for improved sleep and reduction in anxiety levels:

• Seek CBT help from someone who’s been through your anxious condition before. Sleep problems can affect everyone, but if it is caused by presence of some anxiety condition, then it is best to treat that disorder for better sleep.
• Change the place where you sleep. You may change the bed, mattresses, or sleep on the couch, etc. and see if sleep improves.
• Stress and different thoughts racing through the mind can prevent the onset of sleep. Writing those thoughts on a journal can calm the mind and lay the path to better sleep.
• Mild distractions, like listening to a song or two, etc. can help de-stress, relax the body and mind, and help induce sleep.
• A proper sleep schedule is also helpful.

Good sleep quality is essential to lessening your anxiety levels. Begin using the tips above to give yourself the proper rest you need to take on any challenge in your future.

Share Your Tips And Strategies To Getting Good Sleep Quality In The Comment Section Below. 

The Anxiety Guy Community Links :

Join the #1 Health Anxiety & GAD support page on Facebook.

The Anxiety Guy On SnapChat.

Got questions? Ask them on YouTube.