“The results suggest that sleep therapy could reduce anxiety in non-clinical populations as well as people suffering from panic attacks, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other conditions,” said panelist and lead study author Eti Ben-Simon, PhD, of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley.Īnd the really good news is that many of the negative effects of sleep loss appear reversible after just one night of peaceful sleep. Finding ways to improve an anxiety patient’s sleep could be one of the most overlooked and accessible treatment opportunities. Because the link between anxiety and sleep is so strong, researchers reported that “sleep therapy” could be an effective method of treating anxiety disorders. Thankfully, science is also serving up some good news with practical applications. The conditions fuel each other, with compounding effects. The panel also addressed the "vicious cycle of anxiety and sleep loss" -while sleep loss is often a precursor for anxiety disorders, anxiety also leads to sleep loss. “anxiety bloom” even before the day begins. Poor sleep seems to put the brain on-guard by triggering spikes in stress hormones like cortisol, producing an early a.m. These findings are linked to why people with anxiety disorders often report an explosion of anxiety first thing in the morning. One study found that brains of participants who’d experienced even brief periods of sleep deprivation showed greater activity in a complex of “emotion-generating regions of the brain” and reduced activity in “emotion-regulating regions.” The amygdala-seat of the brain’s fight or flight response-is particularly “aroused” when we haven’t slept enough. Research presented during the panel found that brain activity after periods of sleep deprivation mirrors brain activity indicative of anxiety disorders. During the normal cycle of sleep, people spend about 20% of the time in REM, but disrupted sleep derails the cycle, with consequences for memory, the nervous and immune systems, and more. Saper noted that most sleep deprivation is more specifically REM (rapid eye movement) deprivation, referring to the period of sleep during which the body becomes more relaxed while the brain becomes more active. It’s usually not “staying up 40 hours all at once,” but rather gradually losing sleep over time. “Sleep deprivation isn’t what we usually think it is,” said session moderator Clifford Saper, MD, PhD of Harvard Medical School. Links between neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and the accumulation of toxins in brain tissue are exceptionally strong, and sleep loss is a likely culprit.Ī panel session at this year’s event called “Threats of Sleep Deprivation” highlighted new findings on the connection between sleep loss and anxiety. Operating separately from the body's lymphatic system, the brain’s trash-disposal apparatus seems dependent on sleep to function properly. We’ve also learned that sleep provides the brain with an invaluable period of transporting toxins out of neural tissue through a complex garbage-removal system.
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