Sleep Increases Your Recovery From Depression

You CAN feel better!

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A new medical study shows what we can all intuitively feel —

— that when we are in a depression, we truly need deep, restorative sleep to recover.

 

 

It’s okay to sleep more when feeling depressed — in fact, a recent study released in June 2017 showed that patients who were medically treated for depression but did not sleep well were three times less likely to actually recover from depression.

And sleeping 7 hours or more nightly actually tripled the rates of full remission in depression.

Here’s more:

 

The Study:

(presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, Abstract 0335):

  • Researchers followed 104 adult patients with Major Depressive Disorder and insomnia.
  • All patients had a sleep study done as a baseline at the beginning of the study.
  • Patients were treated with 16 weeks of antidepressant medications and half were treated for insomnia using cognitive behavioral therapy.

 

The Results:

  • 62% of patients who received help for insomnia and got at least 7 hours of sleep nightly had their depression fully resolve, compared to only 18% of patients sleeping 5 hours a night and 42% of patients sleeping 6 hours a night.
  • The recovery rate was directly proportional to the amount of sleep the patients were getting
  • In other words, more sleep = higher chance of recovery in depression
  • Less sleep = refractory depression that persisted despite Rx treatment for depression.
  • Getting 7 or more hours of sleep a night MORE THAN TRIPLED the chance of healing depression (compared to patients who got 5 or less hours of sleep a night.)

 

The Bottom Line?

 

If you have depression that is refractory to treatment, examine your sleep.

Sleeping less than 7 hours a night may put the odds of recovering from depression against you.

And physicians:

 

Look at your patient’s sleep patterns and recognize that sleeping poorly at night might be a risk factor for refractory depression despite long term treatment.

 

If you think about it, this is not really surprising news…

…sleep has been shown in the medical literature to affect everything from anxiety to dementia to bone strength to lung health and even heart health!

 

Here are some posts I’ve written on sleep that you may find helpful:

How Sleep Affects Your Heart Health

Missing Just One Hour Of Sleep Skyrockets Your Risk Of Depression, Anxiety

Sleep: An Easy Way To Prevent Asthma

The Easiest Way I Know To Fall Asleep Faster

Poor Sleep Equals Weight Gain, Even For Children

Insomnia? 6 Unusual But Effective Ways To Deepen Your Sleep Tonight

Sleep A Key Factor In ADHD

Sleep Dramatically Impacts Your Weight

Poor Sleep Linked to Alzheimers: 9 Ways To Fix It.

 

And below I list some other articles I’ve written on how to help resolve depression holistically.

These tips can all be used even if you are already on a Rx antidepressant (but it might help you avoid going on one if you can try these treatments first!)

 

Articles on resolving depression holistically:

5 Things You Can Do To Naturally Lift Depression

The One Thing You Can Do Daily To Lift All Types Of Depression… Naturally

Good Moods Are Contagious In Teens (And Prevents Depression)

Resolving PTSD, OCD, Tobacco and Drug Addiction Too

Is Stress Is Making Your Antidepressant Ineffective?

Inflammation Depresses Mood (Here’s How To Reverse It)

A Supplement So Good For The Brain It Can Prevent Psychosis

Up This One Mineral To Up Your Mood

Probiotics An Alternative To Antidepressants

 

Want to go deeper?

Want to know why sleep is so helpful and healing, specifically for depression?

 

 

It’s during sleep that you finally deeply fully truly access your crown chakra and let go… getting into repair and recovery mode.

Here are some questions to ask yourself, to see how relaxed and open your own crown chakra is:

 

  • Do you tend to be harder on yourself then you would be on others?
  • Do you take things out on yourself, of feel responsible for things that are out of your control?
  • Do you suffer from insomnia?
  • Loss of pleasure in the small things?
  • Lost the spontaneous laugh you used to have?
  • Loss of fulfillment in your career?
  • Not sure of your true life’s purpose?

 

If any of these things sound like you, let yourself off the hook and open to the possibility that it is simply a matter of rebalancing your crown chakra.

 

You are being so very hard on yourself when what you are actually doing is functioning the very best you can under extremely difficult energy dynamics.

You are on the right path, you just feel disconnected to it because of a disconnect in the way the energy is flowing through your body.

But you can absolutely get back into a relaxed flow.

Want to learn how to activate your crown chakra more and more so that sleep becomes more restorative and powerful, and your health improves from head to toe?

 

My Chakra Healing Class starts in just a few weeks…. I’ve been waiting all year to run it.

I only run it once in all of 2017 and the time is now! As of writing this blog post, I have 4 spots left!

Chakra Healing Live Class!

 

I look forward to working personally with you, activating and opening each chakra — especially that pivotal crown chakra that affects our sleep and mood and mental state so very very much — and supporting you in finding your very best health yet!!!

Daily uplifting articles and encouragement, weekly live Q&A phone calls and much much more…

 

Find out more and hold your spot here.

xoxoxo, Laura