What is sleep?
Sleep is something that happens to us every night where we become less aware of what’s around us and our bodies get a chance to fix and restore themselves.
During sleep, our brains don’t just “shut down” but become incredibly active just in different ways than when we’re awake.
While we sleep, our brains go through different stages, and each stage does something important.
The deepest sleep stages help lock in what we learned that day, fix damaged brain cells, and as we’re learning from exciting new research … it literally washes out the junk that builds up in our brains during the day.
Without good sleep, we can’t think straight, manage our feelings well, or feel mentally healthy. Sleep is just as important to feeling good mentally as eating food and drinking water are to staying alive.
In this newsletter, we’re sharing some recent research about how sleep and mental health work together.
The 5Rs: Why Your Brain and Body Need Quality Sleep
In our blog post, we explored how sleep is essential for mental health through what we call the “5Rs” framework. Here’s why each one matters for your psychological wellbeing:
- Refresh – Sleep gives your mind a chance to clear mental clutter and reset for the next day, which is crucial for focus and decision-making.
- Renew – Your body uses sleep time to strengthen your immune system and heal physical damage, creating the energy foundation you need for emotional resilience.
- Restore – This is where sleep directly impacts mental health by helping your brain process the day’s experiences and regulate your emotional responses.
- Regenerate – During deep sleep phases, your brain literally repairs itself at the cellular level, maintaining the healthy neural networks needed for good mental health.
- Reconfigure – Sleep reorganizes your brain’s connections, enhancing creativity and problem-solving abilities that help you cope with daily stresses.
What makes this especially important for mental health is that sleep isn’t passive downtime.
While you’re sleeping, your brain is actively cycling through different stages with some focused on physical recovery and others dedicated to emotional processing and memory work.
Why is This Important?
This foundational understanding shows us that sleep isn’t just “time off”. But it’s also when some of your brain’s most important mental health work happens.
Poor sleep quality disrupts these essential processes, which directly impacts your emotional regulation, memory processing, and stress management.
When you understand that sleep is actively restoring your emotional balance and reconfiguring your brain for better problem-solving, it becomes clear why sleep problems and mental health issues so often go hand in hand.
The research we’ll explore next builds on these fundamental sleep processes to show specific ways sleep impacts mental wellness.
Even Night Owls Benefit from Earlier Bedtimes for Mental Health
Think you’re naturally wired to stay up late? New research from Stanford Medicine might surprise you.
In a large study of nearly 75,000 adults, researchers found that both morning people and night owls had better mental health when they went to bed earlier.
Even if you identify as a “night owl,” staying up late increased your risk of mental health disorders by 20-40% compared to night owls who followed an earlier sleep schedule.
The researchers were initially skeptical of their own findings. “We spent six months trying to disprove it, and we couldn’t,” said study author Dr. Jamie Zeitzer.
Why is This Important?
Your natural chronotype (whether you’re a morning lark or night owl) might not be what’s best for your mental health. This challenges the common advice to “follow your natural rhythm.”
The research suggests that regardless of your preferences, earlier bedtimes benefit everyone’s psychological wellbeing. This could be related to how our modern environments (artificial light, social schedules) may conflict with deeper biological needs for earlier rest.
If you’re a night owl struggling with anxiety, depression, or mood issues, gradually shifting your bedtime earlier – even by 30-60 minutes – might provide mental health benefits beyond what you’d expect.
The Bidirectional Relationship: Sleep Quality Predicts Mental Health
A 2024 Sleep Foundation survey revealed something many of us know intuitively but hadn’t seen quantified: the quality of your sleep directly impacts how you feel mentally, and vice versa.
Nearly half of people who report having below-average sleep quality rate their mental health as below average. Those with poor sleep get nearly an hour less sleep per night (6.3 hours vs. 7.2 hours) and are three times as likely to rate their sleep quality as poor.
But here’s what’s particularly interesting: people with anxiety and depression don’t just sleep poorly, they seem to feel the effects of bad sleep more intensely than others.
Even when they sleep the same number of hours as someone else, they wake up feeling worse.
Why is This Important?
This isn’t just about getting more sleep BUT about understanding that sleep and mental health feed into each other in a continuous loop.
“Anxiety is like dumping gasoline on the fire of insomnia,” explains sleep specialist Dr. Brandon Peters.
When you’re anxious or depressed, poor sleep hits you harder. But improving your sleep quality can break this cycle and provide mental health benefits that go beyond just feeling less tired.
The research shows that people with below-average sleep quality are up to two times more likely to regularly experience nervousness and agitation, creating a cycle where poor sleep worsens mental health, which then worsens sleep.
Your Brain’s Overnight Cleaning System: The Glymphatic Discovery
One of the most fascinating recent discoveries about sleep is that your brain has a waste removal system that works primarily while you sleep and it’s called the glymphatic system.
Recent studies show that when we’re in deep sleep, our brain cells work together in a coordinated way that helps move cerebrospinal fluid through brain tissue. This fluid acts like a washing system, carrying toxic waste products out of the brain so they can be eliminated by the body.
Think of it like your brain’s overnight janitorial service. During deep sleep, cerebrospinal fluid flows through your brain tissue, washing away toxic proteins and metabolic waste that build up during the day.
“Sleep is critical to the function of the brain’s waste removal system and this study shows that the deeper the sleep the better,” explains Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, who discovered this system.
Why is This Important?
This discovery helps explain why poor sleep is linked to mental health problems and neurodegenerative diseases. When your brain can’t properly clean itself due to insufficient or poor-quality sleep, toxic waste products accumulate (potentially contributing to depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline).
When this brain cleaning system doesn’t work properly, it may contribute to various conditions including depression, anxiety, headaches, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The key insight?
Not all sleep is equal.
Deep, slow-wave sleep (N3 stage) is when this cleaning process works best. Light, fragmented sleep doesn’t allow for optimal waste removal, which may explain why you can sleep for 8 hours but still wake up feeling mentally foggy if the sleep quality was poor.
This gives us a biological reason why prioritizing sleep quality (and not just quantity) is crucial for mental health.
How You Can Support Your Sleep and Mental Health
Create optimal sleep conditions: Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet. The glymphatic system works best during deep sleep, so minimize anything that might cause frequent awakenings.
Consider an earlier bedtime: Based on the Stanford research, even if you’re naturally a night owl, gradually shifting your bedtime earlier by 15-30 minutes may benefit your mental health.
Focus on sleep quality, not just quantity: Deep, restorative sleep is when your brain does its most important maintenance work. Avoid screens before bed, limit caffeine after 2 PM, and create a consistent wind-down routine.
Address the cycle: If you’re experiencing both sleep problems and mental health challenges, recognize that improving one will help the other. Consider working with a healthcare provider who understands this bidirectional relationship.
Final Thoughts
Your brain works hard for you all day. Give it the deep, restorative sleep it needs to clean itself, process emotions, and prepare you for mental wellness tomorrow.
source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/july-2025-get-reconnected-newsletter-insights-on-sleep-and-mental-health/
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