People who sleep for less than five hours each day are more likely to develop depressive symptoms over a period of time, says a study conducted by researchers at University College, London.
The study underlines a complex relationship between sleep and depression. It shows that those who had a strong genetic inheritance of short sleep were more likely to develop depressive symptoms over a period of 4-12 years.
On the other hand, those who had a genetic predisposition of depression did not necessarily develop the symptoms of short sleep.
The Big Point: The study, which was done over the course of eight years and published in the Transnational Psychiatry journal, revealed that those who slept five hours or less were 2.5 times more likely to develop depressive symptoms than those who slept the optimal period of seven hours.