Want To Be Happier? 50+ Years Of Research Says You Need To Do This

It’s not a secret that sleep impacts pretty much every aspect of our health, from our energy levels to our heart health and, yes, even our mood and mental health.

And according to research published in the journal Psychological Bulletin1, if your mental health is something you’re looking to improve, you might want to think about improving your sleep hygiene.

Here’s what they found.

Studying the connection between sleep & mental health

For this study, researchers wanted to understand the associations between sleep and mental health—namely emotional functioning, mood, and stress levels.

To do so, they analyzed decades’ worth of research (154 studies, to be exact), which included a cumulative total of over 5,700 participants. In each of the studies analyzed, participants’ sleep was disrupted for one or more nights and the subsequent effects were recorded.

For instance, some studies kept participants awake for an extended period, while in others, they weren’t allowed to sleep as long as they normally would. Others involved waking participants up throughout the night.

And based on their analysis, even a little sleep deprivation is bad for your mental health. Whether you’re awake longer than you should be, sleep less than you should, or wake up throughout the night, all of the above have detrimental effects on mental health.

Some of those effects included a reduced ability to experience positive emotions as well as increased stress symptoms like anxiety. And those effects were observed even when participants lost only an hour or two of sleep.

As the study’s lead author, Cara Palmer, Ph.D., explains in a news release, “This study represents the most comprehensive synthesis of experimental sleep and emotion research to date, and provides strong evidence that periods of extended wakefulness, shortened sleep duration, and nighttime awakenings adversely influence human emotional functioning.”

What to do about it

The findings of this study make one thing abundantly clear: If you want to improve your mental health, minding your sleep should be high on the list of priorities.

Especially, Palmer adds, considering so many people aren’t getting enough sleep; “The implications of this research for individual and public health are considerable in a largely sleep-deprived society. Industries and sectors prone to sleep loss, such as first responders, pilots and truck drivers, should develop and adopt policies that prioritize sleep to mitigate against the risks to daytime function and well-being.”

So to that end, one of the best things you can do for your overall sleep hygiene is to maintain a consistent sleep/wake schedule—that is, going to bed and waking up at the same time every day.

And of course, to make sure you’re getting the most out of your nightly snooze, you might want to consider trying a quality sleep supplement with ingredients that are research-backed to help people fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer, such as magnesium and PharmaGABA®. (Here are our favorites to help you choose!)

The takeaway

We need to be getting enough sleep, period. And if you haven’t been—or you deal with frequent wakeups or an irregular schedule—let this be the year you get your sleep hygiene in order. Based on this study, not only will your body thank you for it, but your mental health will too.