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Study suggests a good night's sleep can help prevent depression
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Sleep may be the key to better mental health according to a recent study from South Korea. (Shutterstock/-)
Sleep may be the key to better mental health according to a recent study from South Korea.
Researchers at the Workplace Mental Health Institute at the Kangbuk Samsung Medical Center studied over 200,000 workers, aged between 20 and 40 years, who had visited the medical center for check-ups in 2014.
Shin Young-chul, the head of the institute, and his team found that among those who slept just four hours a day, the pervasiveness of depression was at 9.1 percent, an astounding four times more than the 2 percent recorded among people who had seven hours of sleep per night.
Read also: Experts weigh in on the right amount of sleep
Furthermore, the prevalence of anxiety and suicidal thoughts in the group that slept for just four hours was at 16 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively, while for people who slept a full seven hours, the figures were just 4.3 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
The study also found that the more amount of sleep you get, the less likely you are to be suicidal.
They tested participants of the same gender and age-range in similar fields for their level of suicidal inclinations.
"We can glean from the results that we may be able to prevent depression, anxiety attacks and even suicide among our workers by giving them the chance to sleep at least seven hours a day," Lim Se-won, deputy chief of the institute, told Yonhap. (sul/kes)
