Less Sleep Tied to Increase in Depression: Study

Adequate sleep is the first step to set your mood on a perfect note. A recent study reveals that less sleep triggers depression both in adults and adolescents.

Researchers from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have tried to determine the link between sleeping hours and depression and whether the consequences are same across all age groups.

The research involved two studies: a genetic study of adult twins and a community-based study of adolescents with regards to their sleeping habits.

Previous studies linked gene alterations to increased level of depression. According to the current study, environmental factors like sleeping hours and surroundings can increase genetic risks for depressive symptoms.

In the twin study, 1,788 adult twins self reported about their sleeping habits and how often they felt depressed. The results showed that in twins who slept for adequate hours (9 hours or more), genetic influence on depressive symptoms was 27 percent compared to those who overslept (10 hours or more), they showed 49 percent and those who slept for 5 hours or less  showed 53 percent .

"We were surprised that the heritability of depressive symptoms in twins with very short sleep was nearly twice the heritability in twins sleeping normal amounts of time," said Dr. Nathaniel Watson, co-director of the University Of Washington Medicine Sleep Center, Seattle, in a press release. "Both short and excessively long sleep durations appear to activate genes related to depressive symptoms." 

According to the researchers, adequate sleep can be an effective precaution to reduce depression and helps treatments targeting depression work much faster.

The second study was a reciprocal one that showed an increase in depression in decreased sleeping hours in adolescents. The study suggests that  sleeping less than six hours increases depressive symptoms in teens, which again leads to decreased amount of sleep.

"These results are important because they suggest that sleep deprivation may be a precursor for major depression in adolescents, occurring before other symptoms of major depression and additional mood disorders," Dr. Robert E. Roberts, who led the study and works as a professor of behavioral sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said in a statement.

A recent study has revealed that depression during childhood can increase chances of developing cardiovascular diseases in early teens. Caffeine addiction and improper school timings also magnify the chances of sleeping disorders.