Poor sleep quality among people with PTSD can dramatically lower the amount of physical activities they indulge in, a new study finds.
The study was conducted on 736 outpatients recruited from two Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers. Using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), researchers from the University of California, San Francisco measured each patient's PTSD levels. At the start of the study, patients were asked to report their sleep quality over the last one month. A year later, the patients were again made to report how physically active they were over the previous one month. Of the 736 military veteran participants, 258 had current or subsyndromal PTSD.
"We found that sleep quality was more strongly associated with physical activity one year later than was having a diagnosis of PTSD. The longitudinal aspect of this study suggests that sleep may influence physical activity," said lead author Lisa Talbot in a press statement. "This study adds to the literature that shows that better sleep leads to healthier levels of exercise, and previous research has shown that better sleep leads to healthier food choices. It is clear that healthy sleep is an essential ingredient in the recipe for a healthy life."
The study authors suggest that behavioral interventions to increase physical activity among such patients should include an assessment for sleep disturbance.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop following a traumatic event that threatens your safety or makes you feel helpless. This condition can affect those who personally experience the catastrophe, those who witness it, and those who pick up the pieces afterwards, including emergency workers and law enforcement officers. It can even occur in the friends or family members of those who went through the actual trauma, according to a Mayo Clinic report.
PTSD develops differently from person to person. While the symptoms of PTSD most commonly develop in the hours or days following the traumatic event, it can sometimes take weeks, months, or even years before they appear.
Such people also experience other problems like depression, anxiety, phobias, drug and alcohol misuse, headaches, dizziness, chest pains and stomach aches.
The current study was published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, which is published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The project was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Irene Perstein Foundation, and the Mental Illness Research and Education Clinical Center of the U.S. Veterans Health Administration.
