Feel like you need therapy? If so, you are not the only one. Psychologists and therapists have both reported substantial increases in demand for treatment as we crawl out of the massively stressful and anxiety-filled years of 2020 and 2021 (1). Luckily, if you are not fully ready to dive into the world of professional therapy, your brain does a version of this every night. During REM sleep your brain can process massive amounts of memories; through fascinating neurochemical processes, it can decouple these memories from the emotions they are attached to. Getting enough REM sleep is critical if you want to analyze and respond to daily challenges as a rational human being.
It should now be generally accepted that sleep is important for learning and processing emotional situations and memories. Connections between neurons in our nervous system can rearrange in ways that strengthen certain memories while deleting others. Think of this like cleaning up your home screen on your computer, important items stay out, others are dropped into files, and some information is simply deleted. Your brain does this every night, processing everything from the misspelled name on your coffee order to the 2-hour YouTube tangent you went on watching people build shelters in the wild (I can’t be the only one who watches these).
What most people don’t know is that these memories are processed during different stages of sleep. For the point of this post, we will only break this into 2 stages: deep sleep, and REM sleep. During deep sleep, your brain process and learns motor skills and detailed oriented information. This includes things like playing an instrument or in my case remembering how to build a makeshift fort out of sticks and mud. REM sleep on the other hand is where your brain starts to process the emotions and associations connected to memories. During this state, your brain decouples the anger you felt when that guy cut you off in traffic from the actual memory of being cut off. This decoupling of emotion from memory is why the potency of highly emotional situations begins to dissipate after you sleep.
The methodology behind your ability to do this is fascinating. During REM sleep your brain replays the exact firing of neurons it experienced during challenging situations in the day/s prior. Essentially meaning that you are reliving your memories while you sleep. While that doesn’t seem entirely useful on its own, your brain undergoes a very important neurochemical change during this time. At any point while your awake, and even during deep sleep, your brain is constantly bathed in adrenaline. While the amount of adrenaline varies depending on your emotional state, time of day, activity level, etc., it is always present, except for when you are in REM sleep. During REM sleep adrenaline disappears from your brain (2). This is important as things like panic, stress, fear, and anxiety are mediated and caused by adrenaline. The absence of this molecule coupled with the reliving of memories means you can process emotionally charged memories without the associated emotions.
To comprehend how important this is, think about the power of your emotions during your waking state. Think back to the last time you were extremely emotional and how hard it was to pull together a rational thought. During this state, it seems like the world is collapsing around you, and it's almost impossible to draw clear lines between the reality of the situation and how you are feeling. Still picturing this emotional experience, imagine how you would react if your current self was teleported back to that exact moment. You would respond differently, partially because you know the outcome, but mostly because your brain chemistry right now is very different than it was during that experience. This is what REM sleep is, teleporting back in time in a more optimal brain state.
Emotions are an essential part of our life but if left unprocessed start to impede our ability to act rationally. It's important to understand that having a shitty night’s sleep will not turn you into a psychopath. But consistent lack of this natural therapy will start to creep up like fog from the edges of your goggles until it is impossible to see clearly. Several studies have shown that as much as 90% of individuals that suffer from depression are simultaneously suffering from insomnia (2). Sleep is the fundamental layer of your mental health and without it, your physical and cognitive performance will become encumbered as well.
References:
2) Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 731–748. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
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