Lack of sleep has the potential to cause anxiety disorders

Having a super dense activity every day often makes us subordinate sleep. In fact, getting enough sleep every night is important to support your health. Not only physical health, you know! Getting enough sleep helps maintain your mental health too. There have been many studies out there that have reported various detrimental effects on your mental state due to lack of sleep.

Well, a recent study has successfully linked the effects of lack of sleep with an increased risk of anxiety disorders, aka anxiety. How come? Check out the following explanation.

The risk of anxiety disorders increases over time due to lack of sleep

Experts from various parts of the world agree that the habit of not getting enough sleep for 7-8 hours each night can cause alertness and brain concentration to decrease. So, it's no wonder that after hours (or even days) of not getting enough sleep, you can become confused and have trouble thinking clearly.

A study from Binghamton University found that sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing anxiety disorders. This theory corroborates one previous study that reported about 27 percent of anxiety disorder patients started with insomnia, which made them unable to sleep.

The risk of anxiety due to lack of sleep is associated with disturbed thinking clearly due to brain fatigue. Difficulty thinking clearly causes the brain to tend to plant "seeds" of negative thoughts that disturb and can keep on appearing repeatedly without being triggered by anything.

Lack of sleep also decreases your ability to control behavior because the control function in the brain can't work properly. So when the body is awake, the brain will work in fashion autopilot and refers to an existing pattern, namely habit.

That's why getting rid of bad habits, in this case thinking nonsensical thoughts that trigger anxiety, will be more difficult if you are sleepy. This is because the exhausted brain will automatically repeat the same behavior in the same situation. The effect of repeating negative thoughts is a problem similar to that often experienced by people with anxiety and depression.

Anxiety can also make it difficult to sleep well

Lack of sleep is not a direct cause of anxiety disorders. However, anxiety and sleep actually influence each other. The worse the quality of your sleep, the worse the anxiety symptoms may appear.

This is because the domination of negative thoughts that continue to surround the brain can make a person easily stressed. In the long term, chronic stress can increase the risk of insomnia, which makes it harder for a person to sleep and then triggers symptoms of anxiety.

On the contrary, too. The more anxiety disorders are allowed to eat away at your soul, the more difficult it will be to fall asleep, so the problem can get worse over time. The reason is that when you feel anxious, your brain will continue to play these negative thoughts like a roll of film. As a result, "you will be more busy thinking about it so you can't sleep," said Rita Aouad, MD, a mental health expert and sleep problem treatment expert from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, as quoted from Prevention.

This includes physical symptoms that accompany anxiety such as weakness and aches (due to muscle tension), digestive disorders such as stomach aches or heartburn, headaches, shaking, dry mouth, and heavy sweating. Staying up late alone can cause it, and all these physical anxiety problems can be exacerbated by lack of sleep.

Easy tips to sleep better

The psychological impact of staying up late on a person in general will not be felt right away. Usually it will start to appear when the brain is no longer able to tolerate a very poor rest period.

That's why Meredith Coles, research leader and a lecturer in psychology at Binghamton University, emphasizes the importance of improving sleep patterns as quickly as possible if you are used to staying up for a long time.

In order to get enough sleep and soundly, Coles recommends you to

• "Cleanse" your evening schedule of nonessential and stress-inducing routines, such as not getting used to playing gadgets and not drinking alcohol or caffeine before bed.
• As a replacement, engage in relaxing activities like meditation or doing breathing techniques.
• Create a regular sleep schedule. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, including time weekend, helps circadian rhythms work better.

Simply, follow Hello Sehat's sleep hygiene guide to help your insomnia problem. If you still find it difficult to get enough sleep even though you have followed the steps above, consider consulting your doctor to find out the right way to deal with it.