Discuss the link between depression and sleep patterns.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Almost everyone with depression has sleep problems, and the sleep problems generally precede the mood changes. Many studies have reported that people who have trouble sleeping are at high risk for later depression (Li, Wu, Gan, Qu, & Lu,2016). The usual sleep pattern for someone with depression resembles the sleep of healthy people who have traveled a couple of time zones west: They fall asleep when the clock says to do so, but they enter REM sleep sooner than normal, and they awaken early. One approach is to alter the sleep schedule, going to bed hours earlier than usual. That is, if your circadian rhythm is shifted, so why not sleep earlier, in phase with your rhythm? The person then gets a normal amount of sleep with normal timing of REM sleep. This procedure usually relieves depression quickly and its benefits last for a week or more (Riemann et al., 1999). Another link between sleep patterns and depression is seen in patients with SAD. In contrast to most other patients with depression, who have phase-advanced circadian rhythms, people with seasonal affective disorder have phase-delayed rhythms (Teicher et al., 1997). Many people with SAD have a mutation in one of the genes responsible for regulating the circadian rhythm (Johansson et al., 2003).