[vjk800]

I have a history of mental problems and I mostly attribute it to physical problems. At some point I realized that chronic pain prevented me from sleeping well and when I don't sleep well, I feel like crap. When this goes on for a long time, I don't even notice the link anymore since being in pain and sleeping bad just becomes the normal state of things.

I've been able to manage my pains by a combination of lots of aerobic exercising and yoga/stretching type workouts. I'm not in perfect condition yet, but things are certainly better.

I wonder if all or most of depression/anxiety on people is just some physical problem/pain preventing them from sleeping well and bad sleep causing them to feel like shit.

[agos]

I went through something similar. A physical problem was disturbing my sleep, but not in a "I haven't slept all night" way. After a few weeks I was so fatigued and brain-fogged that I was very worried for my mental health and ability to do my job. It took a lot of time to piece together what was happening and start taking measures to get my sleep back in decent shape. This was the right call: I still have the underlying physical issue but now I can both 1) be a functional human 2) address the physical issue with a functioning brain, which would have been impossible when I was impaired by lack of sleep.

I wouldn't go as far as to say "most" depression/anxiety is caused by lack of sleep, but by now I am certain that a huge amount of undiagnosed or untreated health issues are caused by stuff like inflammation states, lack of sleep, digestion not doing its thing, muscles doing something wrong, and often more than one of these.

I hope you feel better!