A person who wants everything to be absolutely perfect and to whom even the small imperfections of the world around do not give rest is called a perfectionist. One can imagine what anxiety perfectionists are experiencing, reflecting on their own mistakes and indulging in doubts about their actions. And constant anxiety is a direct path to insomnia. An article published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences by researchers from the Higher School of Economics, Northumbria University and Oxford says that there really is a direct connection between perfectionism and insomnia. However, here it is necessary to emphasize several important nuances. Most likely, sleep is deprived not so much of a desire for perfection, but rather anxiety about the fact that you either have not attained or never can achieve perfection, and you will receive reprimand from parents for this (the study was conducted among several dozen young people from 18 to 27 years). That is, the level of anxiety inherent in a particular person is important here – if a person is prone to worry at all, then perfectionism in his case will provide fertile soil for anxiety, and then insomnia will appear.
But depression doesn’t seem to have much effect on perfectionist dreams. That is, someone who constantly strives for perfection and wants to sleep at ease, is better to be depressed than anxious (if you choose from two evils). However, as the authors themselves note, in order to speak for sure about how depression, perfectionism and insomnia are related, additional research is needed.