Sleep and Mental Health: A connection deeper than you think!

What’s the longest you’ve stayed without sleep? The busy culture of today’s world has sadly dignified, even popularised, sleep deprivation for the sake of putting in more and more work. But people fail to realise that sleep has a deep connection with mental health. Quality sleep helps the brain stay consistent regarding thinking activity and other cognitive functions.

Quality sleep is critical for the brain to shut down and get rest. When that doesn’t happen, you risk insomnia, depression, and anxiety, among other problems. Lack of quality sleep can cause mild issues such as irritability and constant drowsiness, and if continued, it can lead to major issues such as hypersomnia and narcolepsy.

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There are two types of sleep: REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM. The non-REM sleep is considered to be the restful phase and has three stages where the person asleep will move from light sleep into deep sleep. REM sleep is the second type and it includes heightened brain activity with intense dreams. 

Each stage plays a significant role in brain health, allowing activity in different parts of the brain to ramp up or down and enabling better brain activities. Research has also identified that emotional and mental health severely depends on the brain activity that takes place during sleep.

How to ensure quality sleep? 
Here are a few most commonly talked about ways to ensure deep, restful sleep. Planning a sleep schedule and sticking to it is the first step to ensuring quality sleep. Monitoring your diet and healthy eating and drinking habits also have a crucial impact. Managing your stress and anxiety levels is key to restful and worry-free sleep and it is essential to have a good sleep environment. 

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Now, what about quality mattresses & pillows? This indeed plays a crucial role but is unfortunately ignored by the majority.

Mattress: The ignored factor
Mattresses are the most overlooked factor regarding reasons affecting quality sleep. A quality mattress ensures a comfortable posture for deep sleep that contributes to positive mental health.

You should certainly avoid mattresses that cause the following issues:

• Body pain – Most people don’t even realize that poor-quality mattresses can result in body pain. To obviate this problem, consider mattresses that use weight-induced memory foam, which responds to body weight and not body heat.
• Excess sweating – Do you know that mattresses can trap heat, causing severe sweating? To avoid this, opt for an open-cell foam structure that helps the mattress to remain dry and cool.
• Sagging/deformed mattress – This is quite common among the majority. The main reason for this issue is the use of low-quality materials. This leads to muscular pain, and misalignment of the spine, among other problems. Hence, prefer a high-quality mattress that uses natural core materials with weight-induced memory foam.
• Allergies & hygiene issues – Mattresses tend to gather dust, and you tend to breathe in the same dust, which leads to allergies of the lungs and skin. Mattresses with certified non-toxic foam, core components and fabrics provide genuine health benefits since they are breathable and hypoallergenic are the answers to this issue. Also, due to the climatic conditions in India, mattresses turn unhygienic pretty soon, leading to the growth of dust mites, bed bugs, and other unwanted pests. To prevent these issues, certain high-quality mattresses feature easily-removable and dry-cleanable fabric that may be frequently removed.

In conclusion
Sleep is crucial, not only for physical but also for mental health. We all have our experiences of irritation and discomfort due to lack of sleep. These are not just examples but also a reminder of the importance of these key facts.

• Mental Health
• Sleep
• brain
• cognitive functions
• Body pain