Going To Bed & Waking Up At Different Times Linked To Increased Depression Risk

For this research, the team analyzed sleep and mood data from over 2,100 young physicians taken over the course of one year. As anyone in residency training knows, those days are long, hard, and don't exactly accommodate a regular sleeping schedule.

To gather the data, the participants wore sleep-tracking devices, as well as reported their mood on a daily basis. They were also screened for depression every few months.

According to this research, during periods when participants' sleep schedules were more varied, they were more likely to report depression symptoms in their quarterly questionnaires. They also reported lower mood on a daily basis.

Interestingly, even if they were getting an adequate amount of sleep, if they were going to bed and waking up at different times every day, they didn't fare any better than those participants who got less sleep than them.

As professor and study co-author Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D., summarizes in a news release on the study, "These findings highlight sleep consistency as an underappreciated factor to target in depression and wellness."

This tracks with what sleep and health psychologist Joshua Tal, Ph.D., previously explained to mbg: "It's really important to keep a consistent sleep schedule [...] because our natural circadian rhythm may get a bit confused if we're constantly changing our sleep schedule." And a confused circadian rhythm, it seems, can make a good mood feel out of reach.