Effects of Sleep Loss on Anxiety and Stress

A lack of sleep can be detrimental to anyone. Those with insufficient sleep are 2.5 times more likely to have diabetes, and 45% more likely to have a heart attack (Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem). However, more and more research points to a disparity in sleep for women. There seems to be an unmet need to improve both the quality and duration of sleep for these women. Many of these women experience a lack of sleep due to trauma or sociological factors/stresses. This leads to health diseases and illnesses, both chronic and acute. My research interests generally lie within the field of sleep medicine. I am more specifically interested in the effects that sleep loss has on the human brain, on a psychological level. My research aims to identify the sociological gap in sleep duration/quality, specifically analyzing why or how women are susceptible to fewer hours of sleep per night, and how this poor quality of sleep leads them to be more vulnerable to certain mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression. I am also identifying how sleep loss affects sensitivity levels to stress.