Ever drive to work and have no idea how you got there? Ever get so little sleep that you started seeing things that weren’t real?
You aren’t the only one. Americans are starving for sleep, and it’s starting to show — sometimes in terrifying ways.
Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Computational Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Sleep Laboratory at Stanford Medicine shares the bad news:
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in three U.S. adults and nearly 8 out of 10 teens don’t get enough sleep, and around a quarter of adults have chronic sleep disorders like sleep apnea or insomnia. More than 1 in 5 U.S. adults has a mental health condition, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.”
My mental health odyssey began when I went five nights without sleep.
Let me be clear: this was not, “Did I sleep last night?” This was like someone had tripped the “sleep breaker” in my brain, and no matter what I did, I could not sleep. Like a goldfish that had jumped out of its aquarium, I would flop back and forth on my bed, fighting the urge to stare at the clock — 2:04, 12:06, and 12:07 — while watching the windows for glimpses of dawn. Each morning when my husband would ask me if I had slept, I would say, “No, but I am so tired. I’m sure I will sleep tonight.” The days felt like those shortly after my son, Ethan, was born, and I was breastfeeding him every two hours. I felt like I was walking through water, like I had cotton in my ears.
What led up to this was years of employer consolidations and subsequent downsizing, followed by years in an abusive job situation. I had reached my breaking point. I had probably always had underlying bipolar (a common form of mental illness formerly known as “manic depression”), but my lifestyle choices had held it in check. Now, with all my coping mechanisms taxed to their limits, the cracks in my carefully cultivated persona began to show — and grow.
Sitting in my office here at Edelen Acres today, I realize that God provided the home I love as a sanctuary from toxic work environments. While I looked toward the day when my husband and I could retire and fully devote ourselves to our homestead plans, God was already at work through Edelen Acres to shield me. At one point during my worst days of psychosis, Dan woke up and couldn’t find me. I was outdoors wandering our property, oblivious to reality. If we had lived in town, I would have been on the streets, hallucinating, vulnerable, and lost.
According to WebMD:
“Delusional disorder is a serious mental illness where you can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. Delusions, or false beliefs, come in several types. Delusions of grandeur are one of the more common ones. It’s when you believe that you have more power, wealth, smarts, or other grand traits than is true. Some people mistakenly call it “illusions of grandeur.”
I am profoundly grateful for the day my parents came down from northern Ohio while I was in psychosis. I heard the doorbell ring, heard the voices of my parents, and I instinctively felt better. I greeted and hugged them both.
As expected, Mom asked, “Have you lost weight, Danei? Are you sick?”
“I just haven’t slept, Mom,” I said sadly. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
As we sat chatting in our living room, I felt so tired that I couldn’t sit up. At some point, Dan and my parents conferred in the kitchen. I tried practicing some scales on the piano but was startled when a black hole opened under the piano. I heard menacing whispers from hellish entities. I began to sing to keep them away.
That night, when I still couldn’t sleep, I climbed into bed with my mom. She rubbed my back and tried comforting me the same way she did when I was a little girl, but nothing worked.
Finally, I looked at her and said, “I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”
“Well then,” she replied, “it’s time to go to the hospital.”
So, we did. I turned 44 while sequestered for a week in the behavioral health wing of a nearby hospital. This was not what I envisioned my life would be like in my mid-forties.
On my first psychiatrist visit after getting off the psych ward, the doctor explained what a hallucination is. Even when you can’t sleep, the bodily function responsible for REM sleep — during which you dream – is still working correctly. So, if you don’t sleep for a long period of time, it activates REM sleep during the day. You literally dream with your eyes open.
The doctor concluded, “Not allowing an enemy soldier to sleep is a form of torture. You must have a strong sense of identity to have endured what you did and be as lucid as you are now. When it comes to mental illness, it all comes down to sleep.”
For people who want to take steps to improve their mental health through better sleep, Stanford Medicine researchers offer tips for achieving or maintaining good sleep hygiene:
• Avoid caffeine and other stimulants after early afternoon.
• Avoid alcohol before bedtime, which can reduce the quality of sleep and cause more frequent sleep interruptions.
• Keep the bedroom in a comfortable and soothing environment.
• Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule is healthier than trying to weekend-warrior your sleep.
• Avoid screen time before bed. Apps are designed to keep you awake and can displace sleep.
• If you can’t sleep, don’t panic. You can’t force sleep when it is not happening. It is better to let go of the struggle and pick up a book and read until you are sleepy.
• If sleep issues last weeks or months, it could be time to see a sleep specialist. The problem could be chronic conditions such as sleep apnea, circadian rhythm disorder, narcolepsy, or chronic insomnia.
In short, to stay mentally healthy, get sleep. Sleep researchers recommend seven to eight hours nightly. And if you regularly sleep fewer than five hours a night or begin to string together two or three nights without any sleep at all, seek help.
NAMI is here for you if your sleep patterns start working against you.
“Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” – Thomas Dekker (1609)
Danei Edelen is the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Northern Kentucky.