Teenage mental illness has received more and more attention in recent years. With the destigmatization of psychosomatic disorders, more patients are willing to go to medical institutions for treatment as early as possible. This is a situation that everyone is happy to see; however, in addition to drug treatment or psychological Consultation, are there other ways that we should know about? Below I would like to share recent papers with you and provide different thoughts.
Refer to the article published in the journal "Sleep Medicine" in 2023studies, its research team conducted assessments on 17,722 teenagers at two time points: April to May 2021 (T1), and December 2021 (T2), about half a year later. At both T1 and T2, the research team assessed participants' "Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs)" and "sleep status", and at T2, they additionally assessed participants' "negative life events." Among them, "sleep deficiency" is defined as: "less than 6 hours of sleep per night", and "sleep disorder" is defined as "insomnia or poor sleep quality."
*Additional note: Since mental illness often takes a long time to confirm the diagnosis, shorter-term studies often describe symptoms as "psychiatric-like illness".
The results of the study showed that at T1, among the study participants, 14.1% had sleep disorders and 14.5% often suffered from psychotic disorders (PLEs); after correcting the participants’ basic information, depression status and negative life events, the research team It was found that "sleep disturbance and sleep deprivation" at T1 were significantly associated with an increased "risk of psychotic disorders" at T2. In addition,"Sleep disorders and sleep deprivation" have a significant predictive effect on the new occurrence and persistence of "psychiatric disorders".
From this paper, we can understand that insomnia alone may cause adolescents to face symptoms of mental illness such as hallucinations and delusions in just six months. If it lasts for a longer period, it may have a deeper impact.
In addition, a study published in "Sleep Medicine" in 2023studies, its research team analyzed 236,910,840 posts by 51,372 Reddit users between 2005 and 2021, and by estimating the users’ average bedtime, they then analyzed the users’ posting and sleep. Finally, the research team found that before going to bed, Social media use may delay sleep onset, and there is a potential cause-and-effect relationship.
Based on the above, the author believes that if you want to reduce the occurrence of mental illness, in addition to traditional drug treatment and psychological consultation, you should also adjust your usage habits of 3C products (for example, avoid using 3C products 30 minutes before going to bed), and combine them with more good products Establishing sleep hygiene habits (for details, seePreamble), it can also be used with appropriate special nutritional supplements as a supplement to further improve sleep quality. Only then can the vicious cycle between insomnia and mental illness be truly cut off, and the root cause improved.
〈The author is former Attending Physician in National Taiwan University Hospital, and Master of Science from National Taiwan University〉