Lifestyle

How Does the Quality Sleep Affect Your Mental Wellbeing

Published

4 years ago

June 14, 2022

As you might have noticed, poor quality sleep has immediate adverse effects after pulling an all-nighter or when someone wakes you up before your alarm goes off. However, besides feeling groggy and out of it, did you know that not sleeping well can cause or exacerbate mental health issues?

Taking care of your mental health should be a priority. Mental health being a priority is why you have to ensure your sleep quality doesn’t get compromised. And for that, one of the best things is the Cake Delta 8 Disposable. Cake is a well-known brand, and its Delta 8 disposables are safe, last for hours and come at an attractive price.

Depression

For a long time, depression was known to be what causes you not to get enough sleep, but recent studies show that sleep deprivation can lead to depression. For example, a meta-analysis from 2011 with data from 21 studies found that your chances of getting depression double if you have insomnia.

Suffering from chronic sleep deprivation, which means getting poor quality sleep over long periods, is now known for changing a chemical called serotonin in your brain. The serotonin in your brain is the chemical responsible for keeping you happier when it’s at normal levels. Should these levels drop, you risk getting depression.

ADHD

If you’ve had ADHD since childhood, whether or not you were diagnosed with it, you might find it harder to fall asleep when you grow older. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true, and research has shown that it’s possible to develop ADHD later if your sleep patterns are regularly disturbed over the years.

Researchers found through sleep restriction experiments that getting poor sleep can worsen ADHD symptoms. That can cause you to get more impulsive, over-active, and inattentive than usual. Additionally, a study that involved children with ADHD showed a decline in the intensity of symptoms after the kids’ sleep patterns got restored to normal levels.

Anxiety

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, you need to get a minimum of seven hours of sleep every day to avoid mental health issues like anxiety. Dr. Julia Kogan, a sleep and stress psychology specialist, says your body produces higher cortisol levels when you’re getting enough sleep.

Cortisol is a chemical that’s usually connected with stress as it’s responsible for worsening digestive problems and headaches to make you feel exhausted or anxious. In addition, sleep deprivation intensifies activity in the regions of your brain correlated to anxiety, as stated in a 2013 study in The Journal of Neuroscience.

PTSD

A 2019 meta-analysis and systematic review said that your chances of developing an anxiety disorder like PTSD multiply by three if you have insomnia. Other studies saw people who experience sleep disruptions being at risk of getting PTSD more quickly than people who sleep healthily. Losing out on REM sleep was the prominent factor in increasing this risk.

REM sleep and other stages of sleep are crucial in helping you understand that the stimuli you experience in an unpleasant setting can be harmless. The Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging journal has a study that showed how losing sleep hampers the brain’s function that makes you forget bad memories.

Psychosis

Researchers say if you lie awake in bed often instead of sleeping, the longer you do this, the higher your chances of losing a sense of reality rise. Some of the symptoms you must look out for before the situation worsens include intensifying hallucinations and hazy or racing thoughts.

Psychosis symptoms are now understood to amplify the longer you stay awake and usually start with simple sensory misjudgments. The good news is that if you find yourself with psychosis symptoms due to not sleeping enough, returning your sleep patterns to healthy levels can cure these.

Bipolar disorder

A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in September 2017 found that sleep deprivation can trigger manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder. Additionally, when you’re experiencing a manic episode, you could feel like you don’t need sleep as you’ll feel extraordinarily energized or alert.

A study in the Translational Psychiatry journal that singled out healthy people found a link between poor sleep and bipolar disorder risk. While this study doesn’t mean you’ll get bipolar disorder by not sleeping enough, it does give us enough reason to want to prevent that possibility.

Conclusion

You can avoid developing or making many mental health conditions worse by simply spending more time asleep. However, just sleeping may not always be easy. So look for ways to curb abnormal sleeping patterns and contact your doctor should you think you have a sleep disorder.

Lifestyle

When Seasons Shift: Dr. Leeshe Grimes on Grief, Loneliness, and Finding Light Again

Published

4 days ago

February 22, 2026

Michelle Langton

Some emotional storms arrive without warning. A sudden change in weather, a holiday approaching, or even a bright sunny day can stir feelings that don’t match the world outside. For many people, the hardest seasons are not defined by temperature; they are defined by what’s happening inside, where grief and loneliness often move quietly.

This is the emotional terrain where Dr. Leeshe Grimes has spent her career doing some of her most meaningful work. As a psychotherapist, registered play therapist, retired U.S. Army combat veteran, and founder of Elevated Minds in the DMV area, she understands how deeply seasonal shifts and unresolved grief can affect people. Her upcoming books explore this very space, guiding readers through the emotional weight that can appear during different times of the year.

What sets Dr. Grimes apart is her ability to see clearly what many people overlook. Seasonal depression, for example, is usually tied to winter months. But she often sees it appear during warm, bright seasons, the times when the world seems happiest. For someone already grieving or feeling disconnected, watching others travel, celebrate, or gather can create its own kind of heaviness. Sunshine doesn’t always lift the mood; sometimes it highlights what feels missing.

The same misunderstanding surrounds grief. Society often treats it as a short-term experience with predictable phases and a clean ending. But in her practice, Dr. Grimes sees how grief keeps evolving. It doesn’t disappear on a timeline. It weaves itself into routines, memories, and milestones. People learn to carry it differently, but they rarely leave it behind completely. And that’s not failure, it’s human.

Her approach to mental health centers on truth rather than pressure. She encourages clients to acknowledge the emotions they try to hide: sadness that lingers longer than expected, moments of joy that feel out of place, and the waves of loneliness that return even when life seems stable. Instead of pushing for quick recovery, she focuses on helping people understand how emotions shift and how to care for themselves through those changes.

Much of her insight comes from her military years, where she witnessed the emotional toll of loss, transition, and constant survival. She saw how people continued functioning while carrying pain that had nowhere to go. That experience shaped her belief that healing requires space, space to feel, to speak, and to move through emotions without judgment.

In her clinical work today at Elevated Minds, she encourages people to build small, steady habits that anchor them during difficult seasons. Journaling helps them recognize patterns and name what feels heavy. Community support breaks the cycle of isolation. Therapy creates a place where emotions don’t have to be minimized or explained away. And intentional routines, daily sunlight, mindful breaks, and calm evenings help rebuild emotional balance.

Her upcoming books expand on these ideas, offering practical guidance for navigating both grief and seasonal depression. She focuses on helping readers understand that healing is not about escaping pain. It’s about learning how to live with it in a healthier way, honoring memories, acknowledging loneliness, and still allowing room for moments of light.

What makes Dr. Leeshe Grimes a compelling voice in mental health is her ability to bring language to experiences that many struggle to explain. She reminds people that emotional seasons don’t always match the weather and that there is no single path through grief. But within those shifts, she believes there is always a way forward.

The seasons will continue to change. And with the right tools, compassion, and support, people can change with them, finding steadiness, softness, and light again, one step at a time.