Sleep is the foundation of mental and physical health
As a seasoned psychotherapist who’s been seeing clients since 2004, I see certain themes that repeat over the years and many clients I’ve worked with. Some of the knowledge that I’ve learned is complex and nuanced, other is very basic and clear.
If you want to know my top recommendation for being emotionally and physically healthy, it’s SLEEP! Get as much sleep as you can, as regularly as possible.
If you’re feeling unbalanced or upset…sleep.
If you’re mind won’t stop chattering…try to sleep.
Feeling stressed…sleep.
The only exception to this might be if you are feeling depressed, then excessive sleep might make you feel worse. It could exacerbate feeling heavy and hard to motivate.
But I’m not talking about excessive sleep, just your basic nightly sleep. Hopefully you know how many hours you need and can maintain a regular bedtime most of the time. Ideally you can honor your body’s slump into fatigue and fall asleep when you’re tired at night.
For those of you who struggle to sleep well, I feel your pain. I’ve lived with chronic insomnia for about twenty years. Living with insomnia is a separate blog topic, but the brief advice list is:
Talk to your doctor to assess for sleep disorders such as sleep apnea.
Learn and practice the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia suggestions for good sleep hygiene.
Shift your relationship to being awake in the night. Create habits that get you out of bed but are soothing. Avoiding screens and bright lights is ideal. Relax into this time to rest instead of feeding your irritation that you’re not sleeping or worrying about how tired you’ll feel tomorrow.
I know this all sounds so basic, and it is! I just can’t tell you how many times a client shows up to a therapy session out of balance…maybe desperate, crying, overwhelmed, worried, self-depricating…any of the horrible states that can plague us…and when I ask about their sleep recently, they say, “oh, I haven’t slept much.” I can assure you that most of us are at our worst when underslept.
Appreciating sleep is a simple wisdom that arises from parenting. Your child can be a nightmare when they haven’t slept enough. The parents may have been on sleep rations since the baby’s birth and everything is harder because of it.
I’d like to give a nod to all the research studies that validate the importance of good sleep for our physical health and healthy aging. Take a look at them if you’re not already convinced.
So please prioritize your sleep as much as possible! I think you’ll feel better on every level. Now stop looking at your phone and head to bed. ;)
If you want to read more about the connections between sleep and mental health, check out this article:
https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/08/sleep-mental-health-connection-what-science-says.html