New Study Finds Duration in Sleep Decreases Suicide Risk

A new study published in an online supplement of the medical journal “Sleep” found that for every one-hour increase in sleep duration there was a 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of suicide risk in people with insomnia. Says primary author Linda Oliver, MA, clinical research coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program in Philadelphia: “We were surprised by the strength of the association between sleep duration and suicide risk.”

I’m not at all surprised by those findings. If I had to name the component primarily responsible for landing me in a psych ward a few years ago, it was the sleep deprivation that followed the birth of my son. I’ve always regarded sleep (and I reiterate this point in my video) as the cornerstone of mental health, and I always advise folks who are depressed to practice some sleep hygienebefore they try on too many diagnoses. Continue reading …