The vital connection between sleep and mental illness
We know that sleep plays a fundamental role in supporting mental health and overall well-being. Disruptions to sleep, such as insomnia, can significantly affect mood, cognitive function and emotional regulation, often exacerbating conditions like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Chronic sleep disturbances not only impact mental illness but also interfere with brain-heart interactions, influencing physiological processes such as heart rate variability, stress response and immune function. These complex interactions between the brain and heart are integral to understanding how sleep influences mental health.
The Sleep Research Clinic delves into this complex and multifaceted relationship between sleep and mental illness with a transdiagnostic approach, working to identify specific sleep components and patterns that are linked to a wide range of illnesses, both physical and mental, across diverse populations.
What we do
The Sleep Research Clinic at The Royal is focused on understanding how sleep affects mental health, and how improving sleep can help in the treatment and prevention of mental illness—particularly depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Sleep research is conducted in a four-bedroom Sleep Laboratory located at The Royal, as well as through studies that use advanced imaging tools like PET-MRI at The Royal’s Brain Imaging Centre. These technologies allow researchers to study brain activity and sleep patterns in greater detail.
The clinic’s research explores many aspects of sleep, including how poor sleep contributes to mental illness, and how improving sleep can support recovery. Some projects focus on testing new treatments or behavioural strategies, while others study the brain mechanisms behind sleep disruptions.
Key research areas include:
- Interventions to improve sleep in people with mental illness
- How sleep affects mood, memory and thinking
- Biological causes of sleep disorders
- How sleep problems are connected to physical health, including metabolic conditions
- Sleep disruptions linked to specific mental illnesses
The Sleep Research Clinic works closely with The Royal’s Sleep Disorders Clinic to ensure that new findings can be translated into better care. This strong connection between research and clinical practice helps bring innovative, evidence-based treatments to the patients who need them.
Referrals
To access our services, have your primary care physician (often a family doctor) use this sleep study or consultation form. Referral forms must be faxed to (613) 798-2980.
Support research
Donations are essential to the advancement of mental health research and the discovery of new, more impactful treatments for mental illness.
