Sleep could be blamed for negative thoughts

The following day after a late-night is always tough. People might have trouble focusing at work. They might feel inactive and find themselves seeking words when they usually would not. One night of inadequate sleep could put a severe restraint on the next day. Everyone knows that sleep is essential, yet many people would not pay attention to getting enough of it.

Research reveals that sleep deficiency could affect the body physically by elevating the vulnerability to heart diseases and decreasing energy levels. But more and more studies show how vital sleep is for our mental health, as well. Lack of sleep might be blamed for continuous negative thinking and even other mental ailments.

The sleep and mood connection

Chronic lack of sleep could elevate the levels of anxiety, depression and negative thoughts. Continuous negative thinking occurs when someone remains on unhelpful thoughts. An instance is thinking, ‘I’m not working hard enough’ or ‘I’m not providing enough to my family.’ These thoughts do not serve a purpose other than self-sabotaging our image. They could lay the framework for anxiety and depression to take over. Researchers found that people who described frequent sleep disturbances tended to linger on those negative emotions more. The fewer hours of sleep the people had, the longer it took them to get over the negative thoughts. While some people usually tend to linger on things more than others, poor sleep might make that lingering worse.

Get a suitable amount of sleep for you.

Stopping negative thoughts might be as easy as getting to bed at the same hour every night. Our sleep depends on the circadian rhythm. As with any rhythm, it works best when we keep the flow steady. Going to bed and getting up at different times every day cold get the rhythm off-track and make it challenging for the people to sleep soundly. Good sleep habits could assist people in keeping their circadian rhythm in time. Putting the phone down at least hours before bed, taking time to read or meditate before bed to relax the mind from the day, keeping the room calm, dark and quiet to avoid disturbances are some tricks to get the desired sleep.

Usually, experts suggest seven to eight hours of sleep for adults, but some might require as many as 10. To find how much sleep the body needs:

1. People should set their alarm for eight hours after they go to bed.
2. If they wake up more than 10 minutes before their alarm, they should push the bedtime 15 minutes later.
3. If people wake up tired, they should then move their sleep 15 minutes earlier.