A Vicious Cycle: Understanding the Connection Between Depression and Insomnia

Millions of Americans suffer from depression (major depressive disorder), and millions suffer from sleep troubles, too. It’s not surprising, then, that these two common problems share some overlap. Understanding the relationships between these common conditions is crucial for finding a solution that provides genuine relief for both.

Revival Infusion Madison is a leading provider of state-of-the-art ketamine infusion therapy for patients dealing with depression and its effects on both physical and emotional health. In this post, Sarah Wilczewski, CRNA, APNP, explores the link between depression and sleep, along with a quick overview of the role ketamine therapy can play in providing relief.

Sleep and depression

As most of us know all too well, sleep plays a critical role in mood regulation: Get a poor night’s sleep, and you’re bound to feel cranky, irritable, and even overly emotional the next day. But that’s not just an annoying side effect of poor sleep: There’s a physiological basis for these changes.

Sleep is the time when our brains perform important housekeeping functions, including recovering from stress, forming new nerve-to-nerve connections, and eliminating waste so it doesn’t accumulate and interfere with cognitive functions. The stresses of the day build up, and instead of being “washed away” by sleep, they accumulate, increasing the symptoms and severity of depression.

Poor sleep also alters the balance of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals called neurotransmitters that play key roles in mood regulation and emotional health issues, like depression and anxiety. Data show people with sleep problems are 10 times more likely to develop major depressive disorder than people who have normal sleep patterns.

At the same time, sleep issues interfere with cognitive functioning, making it harder to think clearly, organize our thoughts, and make decisions during the day. As a result, sleep winds up increasing levels of frustration, weakening your emotional defenses, and making your mind ripe for depression.

The flip side: Depression and sleep

While sleep problems can contribute to depression, the opposite is also true: Studies show people who are depressed are also far more likely to suffer from sleep problems, having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting high-quality sleep. Many people with depression wake up too early, setting the stage for fatigue, moodiness, and depression symptoms.

Depression disrupts sleep by altering the body’s internal clock, throwing off the normal wake-sleep cycle and leading to irregular sleeping patterns and poor quality rest. On top of that, the emotional toll caused by depression can make it difficult — or impossible — to “shut off” your mind, relax, and drift off to sleep. 

Breaking the cycle with ketamine

Depression makes sleep worse, while worse sleep increases the symptoms of depression. It’s a cycle that’s pretty much impossible to break without medical intervention. While antidepressants and psychotherapy can help many people, others find these approaches ineffective — and that’s when ketamine can help.

Given as an IV infusion, ketamine therapy delivers medication directly to your bloodstream, bypassing the digestive tract where antidepressant medications may become diluted and less effective. There’s also no risk of digestive upset with ketamine infusions.

Ketamine acts on an abundant neurotransmitter called glutamate that, like serotonin and dopamine, plays a critical role in mood regulation. Specifically, glutamate helps your brain create and maintain nerve pathways that help stabilize mood and reduce or prevent mood-related symptoms of depression.

At the same time, ketamine enhances sleep, profound sleep necessary for daily brain repair and restoration. In essence, ketamine therapy provides a one-two punch to improve both sleep and depression symptoms, for more energy, better mood stabilization, and an improved outlook on life.

Break the cycle of depression

Depression and sleep share a complex relationship, and depression can cause changes in other aspects of your physical wellness, too. To learn how ketamine can help break these cycles by targeting underlying chemical processes, request an appointment online or over the phone with the team at Revival Infusion Madison in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, today.