Abstract
This study intended to examine the relationship between sleep, mood, and anxiety. In particular, this study sought to find out if depression symptoms are negatively correlated with sleep disturbance. The study involved 231 University students who filled a PSQI and DASS questionnaire which was statistically analyzed using Pearson correlation. The results of the study showed that only 12% had a good sleep during the study. More respondent who reported sleep disturbance also were found to be depressed. The results show that there exists a relationship between sleep disturbance, anxiety, and depression. The study showed that sleep disturbance coexists with depressive symptoms in an inverse nature. The overlap between the three behaviors and depression complicates the proper assessment of the relationship. More research needs to be conducted to support the relation between sleep, mood and anxiety among different age groups.
The relationship between sleep, mood and anxiety
Human beings spend one-third of their life sleeping. A study by Diekelmann & Born (2010) found that sleep in nature is a critical physiological process that has emotional, cognitive and physical benefits. Recent research findings have suggested that sleep has restorative functions such as clearance of metabolic wastes and neocortical maintenance. Long sleep durations have been highly linked to increased interlink between ventromedial prefrontal cortex as well as the amygdala (Goldstein & Walker, 2014). The result also pointed to the beneficial impact of the sleep on memory and learning. The detrimental effect of short sleep hours and sleep disturbance shows that a person is more likely to be implicated in impaired cognitive functions such as difficulty in decision making, attention, and inhibition. Sleep disturbance has also been found to be closely related to problems in emotional regulation and thus determine if a person has higher levels of subjective stress or has low-stress levels. The existing research findings have positively co-existed with sleep disturbance and anxiety related disorders (Johnson, Roth & Breslau, 2010).
According to more research findings, there is a strong relationship that exists between psychological and psychiatric problems and sleeps (Johnson, Roth & Breslau, 2010). It's used to explain why people, who are depressed, have anxiety or trouble sleeping have experienced mental disorders. For example, when people are feeling low and moody, the first culprit could be a lack of sleep. It’s the first symptom of clinical depression when one starts to be easily irritable, persistently sad and empty. These alterations to a person's mood affect their personal mental health as well as dynamic relationships that the individual has with other members of the society (Tsuno, Besset& Ritchie, 2010).
Clinical researchers such as doctors have identified a link between sleep disturbance and anxiety for a long time (Goldstein & Walker, 2014). This research is typified by people with insomnia having greater levels of anxiety and depression than those who engage in regularly interrupted sleep. Such people were found to have developed clinical depression and clinical anxiety (Batterham, Glozier& Christensen, 2011). People infected with insomnia tend to display more sleep disturbances were later found to have developed depression over their lifetime. Researchers also agree that obstructive sleep which is a condition where a person frequently wakes up throughout the night is directly linked to depression and this link is explained by clinical researchers as sleep disruption alters the brain activity as well as neurochemicals which have been found to affect that person's mood as well as thinking.
The above existing research findings do suggest that there exists a substantial relationship between psychological and psychiatric problems and sleep (Guastella&Moulds, 2007). These psychological problems include anxiety and mood and therefore this study aimed at investigating if indeed there is a link between sleep and depression among the Australians. The purpose of this paper will, therefore, be to provide an analysis of the relationship between anxiety, sleep, mood and depression among adolescents and children in Australia. The study will also provide specific practice recommendations that clinical officers could adopt in their mental health interventions as well as future research directions (Huang, Szabo& Han, 2009).
Given the above, this study will hypothesize that:
Depression symptoms are negatively correlated with sleep disturbance.
The research question in this study will be;
Is depression related to sleep disturbance and, anxiety?
Method
Participants: the participants who took part in this study were recruited from Monash University. The participants who took part in this study had an age range of between 18 to 27 years and are phycology students with an average age of 23 and standard deviation of 3.2 years. The number of participants in this study was 321 with males being 70 and females being 251. All the participants received a course credit for taking part in the study. They were required to sign a consent form before they were allowed to participate in the study.
Measures
While measuring mechanisms through which sleep mode and anxiety are connected to the study used psychometric properties Depressions Anxiety and Stress Scale as well as Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The demographic sheet utilized in this study had 50 questions that participants were required to fill each having questions regarding their daily schedules, work and academic commitment and information. This was meant to provide the background of the participant.
Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: This measure consists of ten items with the total score ranging from 0-20. The higher score indicates worse sleep quality. This study assumes a high internal consistency as well as the reliability of the test to be Cronbach's α=0.83 and r=0.85 respectively. The seven components to be reported on this scale include, sleep disturbance, sleeping medication use, daytime dysfunction, sleep quality, sleep duration, habitual sleep, and sleep latency (Buysse et al., 1989). For this study, a firm the internal consistency will be assumed 0.71. Scores above Five are considered poor sleep or sleep disturbance.
Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DASS) is used to assess the levels of anxiety symptoms among the participants. This scale has 20 items in which the member mark as to whether the article pertains to them or not. Values of 1, 2, 3, and 4 are given to the responses, and the scores range between 20 to 80 with participants with lower scores having higher anxieties and those having higher scores having lower anxiety symptoms.
Procedure: Each of the participants will respond to the questionnaire through the Universities Integrated Surveying as well as Interactive Testing system. They are given an opportunity to read and thus, make an informed opportunity to either decline or accept to participate in the study through and online consent form. Their responses will be confidential. The respondents will be required to answer questions on the sleep, depression mood and anxiety measures. Once the respondents completed filling the questionnaires debriefing information was provided and the results analyzed through statistical correlations analysis (Faul et al., 2009)
Results
Results from the correlational analysis show that participants who report lower Durance of sleep reported Pearson correlation of those with depression was at p < 0.211 while under the DASS scale, the Pearson correlation between sleep hours and depression was p < 0.655. The frequency between those who reported anxiety disorders about sleep duration was at 29 of all participants. The mean sleep hours duration reported by male and female members in this study was M=1.78 with a standard deviation SD=0.413. Minutes taken to fall asleep on DASS Scale from Pearson Correlation was p > 0.010 and p < 0.86 two tailed. When depression and sleep are considered, the PSQI Pearson Correlation was noted to be p > 0.342. When stress and depression are considered, the Pearson correlation is noted to be p < 1. When anxiety is controlled, the PSQI Pearson Correlation p = 1.0 and the DESS Pearson correlation was p < 0.243.
Discussion
This study examined the relationship between sleep duration and depression and anxiety behaviors suing a representative sample of university students. The results indicated that individuals with longer and undisturbed duration of sleep have low levels of depression. Further, it is true that individuals with higher anxiety levels also have significant depression symptoms. As shown from Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, major sleep disturbances over a lifetime of participants were significantly associated with the presence of psychological problem such as anxiety and mood where the presence of a good sleep and therefore less depressive signs were also related to the absence of emotional distress. The results thus support the hypothesis that depression symptoms are negatively correlated with sleep disturbance. If a similar study was carried out with anxiety and sleep disturbance was controlled, it was noted depression symptoms would not be observed and the sleep disturbance reduced. These results are consistent with previous results that had been recorded that depression symptoms are negatively correlated with sleep, mood and anxiety. Previous results suggested that depression is connected to anxiety, emotional disorders and sleep duration and disturbance (Atalay, 2011).
These results of the investigation thus increased the body of the research findings that supported undisturbed and longer duration of sleep and lowering anxiety disorders can be used to control depression. The relationship between sleep disorders and depression in this study account for a direct link between sleep disturbance and depression but do not explain in detail the exact effect through which all the three factors are related and interplay to cause depression. Extended research needs to be carried out accurately to determine the exact cause of lower sleep duration so as to understand fully the exact effect sleep duration, anxiety and mood have on a person developing depression. To some extent repetitive personal habits and delayed sleep can account for lower sleep periods as well which may not have the relationship with depression presence or absence (Ehring& Watkins, 2010).
References
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