One way of conveying the importance of sleep is to demonstrate how common ‘sleep problems’ are across mental health disorders.

That way people can see the relevance and importance of sleep in their own practice.

One year I grabbed my copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) - and looked at the symptoms for every mental health disorder.

To my surprise, there were only a few mentions of sleep.

This included:

• Unipolar depression - where a symptom was ‘hypersomnia or insomnia’.

• Bipolar depression - ‘reduced need for sleep’

• PTSD - ‘nightmares’

• Oppositional Defiant Disorder - ‘staying out all night’

This wasn’t as impressive as I hoped. And it took a real long time to flick through this door-stopper of a book!

So I searched Google Scholar.

I hit the Jackpot. Hundreds of studies showing sleep problems were more common when someone was diagnosed with another mental health disorder.

And one of those mental health disorders was the most deadly of all …

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates (Iwojomo et al., 2021).

So understanding as many factors as possible that contribute to an eating disorder is important - as these may provide clues on how to reduce the massive impact they have.

There’s now the 5th edition of the DSM (DSM-5) - but if one wants to learn about sleep problems in those with an eating disorder, Google Scholar is the place to go.

There are only a few eating disorders, and the most common ones are known to most of us.

Anorexia & Bulimia

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And as long as that something is backed by sleep science!

• Prof MG