“One of the strongest links to suicide is poor sleep, most suicides happen when people are really sleep deprived, often in the afternoon after several nights of poor sleep or between 12am-3am.”
Genesis 2:2 – By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
One of the best ways to prevent suicide is to address sleep problems.
Teens are particularly vulnerable to sleep problems because they produce melatonin (the sleep chemical) two to three hours after an adult. When teens want to sleep in late they are not being lazy they are just following their biology.
Wendy Troxel has a great talk explaining this.
There are a lot of different sleep problems, such as
- Sleep Apnoea
- Bladder issues
- Restless leg syndrome
- Delayed sleep phase
- Hypersomnia
- Racing thoughts
- PTSD-nightmares
The good news is that with the right help almost all sleep problems are manageable if not curable. A doctor should be able to help with things like sleep apnoea and restless leg syndrome, whereas a counselor or psychologist may be able to help with racing thoughts or nightmares from PTSD.
There is also a specialist sleep clinic in New Zealand https://www.sleepwellclinic.co.nz/
Research sources:
Perlis, M. L., Grandner, M. A., Basner, M., Chakravorty, S., Brown, G. K., Morales, K. W., … & Chaudhary, N. S. (2014). When accounting for wakefulness, completed suicides exhibit an increased likelihood during circadian night. Sleep, 37, 272.
Tian, N., Zack, M., Fowler, K. A., & Hesdorffor, D. C. (2019). Suicide timing in 18 states of the United States from 2003–2014. Archives of Suicide Research, 23(2), 261-272.
