S.O.T.T: For more than a hundred years, experts have recognized interrelated connections between sleep, depression and suicide: At least three-quarters of clinically depressed people struggle with sleep, and insomnia is a well-proven risk factor for suicide across different cultures and age groups. Moreover, sleep disturbances increase the likelihood of non-depressed people becoming depressed.
We don't yet have any tidy divine theory to tie these pieces together, but researchers are working hard to get us there.
Doctors have treated poor sleep as a hallmark symptom of mental disorders for the better part of the last century. The Diagnostic Statistic Manual (DSM), first introduced in 1952 and now in its fifth edition, is used to diagnose all mental disorders. Since 1994, the DSM has explicitly instructed doctors and therapists to ask about irregular sleeping patterns in diagnosing depression.
An emerging school of thought, however, frames the relationship between sleep and depression differently. Non-depressed people who sleep poorly for a long period of time have an increased risk of developing clinical-grade blues. This progression suggests that not sleeping may contribute to the onset of mood disorders that might otherwise lay dormant...read more>>>...
