Since insomnia and sleep issues commonly plays a role in ADHD, depression, and anxiety I wanted to share a few articles related to sleep. This if the first of 2 or 3. They are more general articles on sleep rather than specifically related to mental health.The quick summary is, per the article, "One of the researchers, Prof Sean Drummond, said: 'We found that insomnia subjects did not properly turn on brain regions critical to a working memory task and did not turn off 'mind-wandering' brain regions irrelevant to the task.'"You can read the full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23897665
ADHD and Sleep (or lack thereof...)
Dr. Thakkar wrote this interesting article in the New York Times about chronic sleep deficit and ADHD. A chronic lack of sleep can have such a strong effect on your ability to focus and concentrate that it can mimic ADHD. One of the most common complaints that my clients with ADHD have is their difficulty getting adequate sleep, so they're dealing with a double attention-deficit whammy. The good news is that cognitive behavior therapy can treat both of the conditions.Diagnosing the Wrong Deficit: Could what looks like A.D.H.D. be a sleep disorder in disguise?by Vatsal Thakkar, MD