Sleep better, feel better

Here’s the truth about sleep and mental health from the mouths of innumerable sleep patients yet unheeded by many primary physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists or therapists:

“You know, if I could just sleep better, I don’t think I’d feel so bad.”

“I think if I weren’t so tired, I would not feel so stressed or depressed.”

“If I could get more sleep or better sleep, my anxiety or depression would be easier to deal with.”

Many healthcare professionals, with all the best intentions, frequently respond to this point of view as follows: “Let’s treat your anxiety or depression and see if that helps your sleep.”

Technically, your doctor or therapist assigns depression as the primary or major problem, whereas they treat your sleep complaints as secondary or a symptom of this so-called primary problem. Depression is considered more important than sleep problems. Even if sleeping pills are prescribed, insomnia or poor sleep is viewed as a symptom, not the real problem; yet, sleeping pills rarely if ever cure anyone’s chronic sleep problems.

Many people intuitively understand a much deeper truth about the relationship between sleep and mental health, and this truth will guide you in your quest for sound sleep:

“If I could sleep better, I would feel better.”

When we permit ourselves to take a fresh and honest look at sleep disturbances in mental health patients, we see that sleep disturbances frequently deserve top-billing or at least a co-starring role in many more cases than once imagined.

Which means, if we treat your sleep problem as if it were a primary or a major health disturbance instead of waiting to treat it after treating your mental health problems, not only might your sleep improve more and faster, but your anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic stress symptoms might improve more and faster as well. Astonishingly, some sleep disorders patients’ mental health problems disappear once sound sleep is achieved night after night.

Sound Sleep, Sound Mind does not represent a hypothesis, belief, speculation, or dream, but literally reflects genuine knowledge from the growing body of scientific evidence about the relationship between your sleep and your mental heath.