Key Takeaways
- Prioritizing good sleep can support emotional regulation, memory integration, and neuroplasticity.
- REM sleep (the dream stage of sleep) is the time when your brain sorts, stores, and makes sense of emotional experiences—hence why “sleeping on it” is a wise move before making a big decision.
- During deep and REM sleep, our brain reshapes itself to adapt and grow based on these experiences.
We all know firsthand how cranky and spaced-out it’s possible to get from lack of sleep. But you might not know that sleep can play a key role in personal and emotional growth.
While sleep can feel like a passive activity, there’s a lot of important stuff going on while you sleep. Your emotional and psychological development and ability to weather the challenges that life inevitably throws at you are tied to the quality and consistency of your sleep.
We connected with two sleep experts to give us the low-down on how sleep can help us grow and become more resilient.
How Sleep Promotes Growth
“Sleep is one of the most underrated tools we have for managing emotions and making sense of the world,” says Raj Dasgupta, MD, a quadruple board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, sleep, pulmonology, critical care, and chief medical advisor for Sleepopolis.
How does this work? “While you sleep, especially during deep and REM sleep, your brain processes emotional experiences, stores important memories, and literally reshapes itself to adapt and grow,” Dr. Dasgupta describes.
Sleep is one of the most underrated tools we have for managing emotions and making sense of the world.
But here’s the thing: this process only works correctly when you get enough consistent and quality sleep. “If you’re sleeping in fragments or not getting enough, that emotional processing gets cut short, and your brain doesn’t get a chance to reset,” Dr. Dasgupta says.
Tarik Hadzic, MD, PhD, child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and medical director for Newport Healthcare OCD Services, says that sleep plays an important role in promoting neuroplasticity, which refers to your brain’s ability to adapt and grow in response to experiences and challenges. “Sleep is essential in supporting this because it eliminates unnecessary connections and strengthens important neural connections formed when you are awake,” says Dr. Hadzic.
The Role of REM Sleep in Emotional Processing
Throughout the night, we all move through four main stages of sleep. Three of these stages are non-REM sleep, and the last stage is REM sleep, which is when you dream.
You move through these stages four to six times during the night. A typical sleep cycle looks like this:
Stages of Sleep
- Stage 1 (non-REM sleep): You are between wakefulness and sleep.
- Stage 2 (non-REM sleep): You are now fully asleep.
- Stage 3 (non-REM sleep): You are now in a deep sleep, known as slow-wave sleep.
- Stage 4 (REM sleep): You are dreaming.
All of the stages of sleep are important, and deep sleep is particularly important for restoring your body’s overall health. But REM sleep in particular—dreaming sleep—is when you process many of your experiences.
“REM sleep plays a very important role in emotional processing by helping the brain sort, store, and make sense of emotional experience,” Dr. Hadzic says. “During REM, the brain reactivates emotional memories in a safe, dream-like state, which helps reduce the emotional intensity and supports better emotional regulation when awake.”
REM sleep is also a time when memories and experiences from your day are processed and moved into your long-term memory storage. This makes it easier for you to recall information and helps you use it to adapt to life challenges, based on your past experiences, Dr. Hadzic adds.
To put it another way, REM sleep is “when your brain takes all the emotional stuff from the day and starts working through it,” Dr. Dasgupta describes. “It’s kind of like overnight emotional first aid.”
While you sleep, the part of your brain linked to memory and emotion stays active, but the stress-related areas (e.g., the amygdala) is dialed down somewhat, according to Dr. Dasgupta. This helps you gain a fresh perspective on things by the time you wake up in the morning.
Sleep and Therapy Outcomes
The great thing about therapy is that it can not only help with personal growth but also with sleep itself—and better sleep means better emotional regulation, emotional processing, and growth.
“Therapy and sleep go hand in hand,” says Dr. Dasgupta. First of all, therapy can help you if you’re having trouble getting your ZZZs. “If racing thoughts or unresolved emotions are keeping you up, therapy, especially something like cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), can help calm that mental noise,” Dr. Dasgupta recommends. CBT-I is a type of therapy designed for sleep issues specifically, and research has shown it to be equally effective as sleep medications, except without side effects.
But therapy does more than help you sleep better. “Beyond just sleeping better, therapy helps you get curious about your habits, your triggers, and the patterns that might be playing out in your dreams or your day,” Dr. Dasgupta says. “Better sleep makes it easier to do deep emotional work, and that work often helps improve your sleep. It’s a feedback loop in the best way.”
Tips for Aligning Sleep With Personal Growth Efforts
So what’s the best way to make the most of your sleep, and to align it with your personal growth efforts and goals? Dr. Dasgupta shared his top tips:
- Journaling. Trying journaling before bed to “spill” your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. “It’s a simple habit that can ease anxiety and help your brain wind down,” Dr. Dasgupta says.
- Bedtime boundaries. It’s vital to have clear boundaries around your bedtime and to prioritize and protect it just as you would other self-care strategies like working out or going to therapy. This also means limiting screens before bed and saying no to nighttime stress triggers.
- Pay attention to your dreams. Your dreams are a gateway to your subconscious and what’s going on beneath the surface. Take note of what your dreams might be telling you. Consider keeping a dream journal.
- Emotional check-in before bed. “Use your bedtime routine as a mini check-in, a chance to breathe, reflect, and tell your nervous system it’s safe to rest,” Dr. Dasgupta suggests.
- Notice patterns. Take note of any usual patterns in your sleep. For example, if it’s disrupted often, there might be something emotional going on that’s worth paying attention to.
Bottom Line
It’s easy to think you can push through life and go without sleep. In some circles, existing on little sleep is thought of as a good thing—a sign that you are strong and can persevere through challenges. But the truth is that getting enough sleep is actually what makes you stronger and more resilient. High-quality sleep is one key ingredient in the secret sauce of personal growth and resilience.
If you are struggling with your sleep or are looking for more ways to use sleep for growth, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional for support.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
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