Can Lack of Sleep Trigger a Manic or Depressive Episode in Patients with Bipolar Disorder?
Insomnia, the inability to fall asleep or to remain sleeping throughout the night, is one of the most common medical complaints seen by health care practitioners. At least 30% of individuals, adults as well as children, experience this common sleep disorder one or more times during their lives. For patients with bipolar disorder, this percentage is much higher – virtually all bipolar sufferers have insomnia to some degree. Not only are sleep disturbances symptomatic of bipolar disorder; many researchers have noted that bouts of insomnia are also triggers of both manic and depressive episodes. Up to 60% of bipolar sufferers report some sort of sleep disturbance directly prior to a manic episode; the inability to get a sufficient amount of rest can result in hormonal and neurotransmitter changes that perpetuate the cycle of mania, depression, and insomnia. To understand why this happens, it is helpful to understand the basic mechanism of sleep and how it is affected by the abnormalities
