The correlation between disturbed sleep and suicide.

1. Sleep Hygiene and Mental Health
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISTURBED SLEEP AND SUICIDE
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2.  The battle against suicide took a step backward
between 2011 and 2012. According to the CDC, while 8
of the 10 most common causes of death in the US
showed statistically significant reductions in the death
rate over the span of merely 1 year, one cause of death
among the top 10 showed a significant increase—
suicide.1 More than 40,000 Americans will complete
suicide this year. Clearly more needs to be understood
and done to reverse these trends.

3.  All psychiatrists know the risk factors for
suicide. Some are unmodifiable, such as
advancing age, male sex, and being white.
 Others are potentially modifiable, such as
depression, drug abuse, hopelessness, and
social isolation. Among the newest modifiable
risk factors to join the list are insomnia and
nightmares.

4. Risk Factors

5.  What explains these associations,
especially when 2 seemingly opposite
phenomena such as insomnia and
hypersomnia are linked to suicide? One
explanation is the simple concept of
“burden of illness.” It is well known that a
chronic medical illness is a risk factor for
suicide, so perhaps the burden of living
with insomnia or hypersomnia becomes
the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

6.  The strength of the association between sleep
disturbance and suicide would suggest that
many suicide deaths happen at night, yet the
opposite seems to be the case.
 Very few suicide deaths occur during the
nighttime hours, followed by a sharp rise in
suicide death rates through the morning hours
and a decline again toward evening.
 Therefore, if sleep disturbance is related to
suicide, it may be through the effects of sleep
disturbance on daytime psychological or
physiological function.

7.  Both insomnia and hypersomnia are associated
with impairments in cognitive
functioning. Patients with insomnia have trouble
in problem solving, and deficits in problem
solving have been described in persons who have
survived suicide attempts.
 In this scenario, the person who is dealt a major
setback, such as a broken relationship or job loss,
is unable to produce a solution to the problem if
he or she has insomnia; this leads to the worst
possible solution. Hypersomnia, like insomnia, is
also associated with deficits in cognition.

8. THANK YOU!
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BETWEEN-SLEEP-DISTURBANCE-AND-SUICIDE
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