Sleep essential for wellness

By Virginia Winder

Getting a goodnight’s sleep isn’t a luxury for me, it’s a necessity.

Experts say that all people should look at sleep in the same way because a lack of it can have dire consequences for the mind and body.

If I don’t sleep well three nights in a row, it can be a sign I’m either heading towards a depressive slump or a bout of over-energetic hyper-mania.

Also, for me deep tiredness can feel exactly like depression and only a goodnight’s sleep can reveal the truth.

If I wake up feeling replete and fine, then it was just exhaustion nibbling at my psyche.

Sitting here, listening to David Bowie’s 1971 album, Hunky Dory, I’m feeling great sadness at his loss.

Grief also feels like depression.

When my mum and dad died in a car crash in 1999, I learnt to tell the difference between the two. It all came down to what I was thinking about.

If I was feeling sad and thinking about my beloved ma and pa, I was suffering from grief.

But if I was thinking about other things, then that was depression. For the first couple of years after they died, it was grief that floored me more than diagnosed depression.

Now before you think I’m forever depressed, I do have long spells without getting down. I just had 14 months without a glimpse of it and when I did get walloped in the second week of November, it only lasted five weeks.

Why it hit, is anybody’s guess. Why it disappeared one Tuesday morning, I have no idea.

What I do know is that sleep is an essential ingredient in staying well.

The Harvard Medical School says: “Sleep problems are more likely to affect patients with psychiatric disorders than people in the general population.”

It also reports that sleep problems may increase the risk for developing particular mental illnesses and also result from such disorders.

“Treating the sleep disorder may help alleviate symptoms of the mental health problem.”

Harvard says there many benefits to sleep.

The deepest stage of quiet sleep produces physiological changes that help boost the immune system.

In REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, people experience the dream state. “Studies report that REM sleep enhances learning and memory, and contributes to emotional health — in complex ways.”

On the flip side, sleep disruption affects levels of neurotransmitters and stress hormones – and more. It wreaks havoc in the brain, impairing thinking and emotional regulation and then comes the chicken or the egg scenario: “Insomnia may amplify the effects of psychiatric disorders, and vice versa.”

So, on Sunday, I chose to go to bed instead of writing my blog. I was deeply tired and feeling that edgy, niggling feeling in my gut that can mean impending gloom. It wasn’t.

I woke up this morning feeling bright, refreshed and cheerful.

Now, I’m just feeling deep sadness at the loss of one of my musical heroes. RIP David Bowie, your music touched my heart, my soul and tickled my muse for many years – and will do for more to come.

“I, I will be king

And you, you will be queen

Though nothing will drive them away

We can beat them, just for one day

We can be Heroes, just for one day..."