Sleep necessary for mental health and well-being

This article discusses how crucial good sleep is for a person's mental health and well-being, and the consequences of not having good quality sleep.

Having a good quality and restorative sleep is essential for one to be able to function well throughout the day. Failure to do so will lead to numerous impacts to health, both long- and short-term.

According to the Sleep Disorder Society Malaysia (SDSM) president Dr Muhammad Muhsin Ahmad Zahari, some of the short-term negative impacts include short attention span, memory recall and learning; while its long-term effects have long been associated with hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, weakened immune system, and cancer.

Dr Muhammad Muhsin added that sleep disorder can also increase the risk of accidents.

"People who suffer from insomnia are seven times more likely to become involved in an accident which then resulted in death or serious injury," he said at the launch of the `World Sleep Day Celebration and Sleep 2014 Conference' at Cititel Hotel, here, today.

He revealed that sleep disorder actually constitute a global epidemic that threatens health and quality of life for up to 45% of the world's population, thus it is essential for everyone to have a better understanding of sleep conditions.

"Sleep is a basic human need and it is crucial not only to our health and well-being, it also plays an important role in the metabolic regulation in children," said Dr Muhammad adding that SDSM is working closely with the relevant authorities, associations and organisations in improving the quality of service of sleep medicine.

"With regards to the quality service in sleep medicine, facilities such as sleep laboratory are vital. As our population grows, there is definitely a need to increase the number of sleep laboratory in public hospitals to cater to the need of the people." he added.

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The placebo effect is relevant to sleep!

Researchers have shown that when people think they're getting more restorative sleep, they have better cognitive function.

A pair of researchers at Colorado College in College Springs, Colorado has shown that fooling people into believing they've had more or less than average amounts of REM sleep can impact their cognitive skill levels. In their paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Christina Draganich and Kristi Erdal describe an experiment they conducted with volunteers that evaluated the relationship between the placebo effect regarding REM sleep and performance on cognitive skills test.

Prior research has shown that shorter time spent in REM sleep tends to impair cognitive skill levels after waking. Conversely, long REM sleep periods have been shown to improve such levels. In this new effort, the researchersset out to determine if the placebo effect might do the same.

To find out, the researchers enlisted the assistance of 164 students from the College and divided them into two groups. Individuals from both groups were asked to lie down and go to sleep while attached to a special machine that could measure the amount of time they were undergoing REM sleep (it actually didn't do anything at all). All participants were also given a seminar before sleeping where REM sleep was explained—they were also told what percentage of the time people normally spend in it while sleeping (on average 20 to 25 percent). It was also explained to them how REM duration had been found to impact cognitive skill levels. After sleeping, volunteers from one group were told they had spent more time than average in REM sleep, while those in the other group were told they'd spent less than the average amount of time in REM sleep. Individuals in both groups were also asked how they thought they had slept before being asked to take some tests that measured cognitive abilities (processing speeds and attention levels).

In analyzing the results, the researchers found that the people who were in the group who were told they'd spent more time in REM sleep did better than average on thecognitive tests while those who were told they got less, did worse—regardless of how well the volunteers thought they had slept.

The study shows, the researchers report, that the placebo effect can indeed by applied to REM sleep and cognitive skill levels, though they are at a loss as to why that is.

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