Sleep loss goes beyond just making us tired. It can harm our emotional functioning, reduce our positive mood, and put us at greater risk for anxiety symptoms. The conclusion is from a study that combined more than 50 years of research on sleep deprivation and mood.
“In our largely sleep-deprived society, measuring the effects of poor sleep on emotions is critical to promoting mental health,” said Cara Palmer, lead author of the study. Montana State University.
This study (published by American Psychological AssociationThe researcher added: “It represents the most comprehensive synthesis of experimental research on sleep and emotions to date, and provides strong evidence that longer periods of wakefulness, reduced sleep duration, and night-waking negatively impact human emotional functioning.”
The team of researchers including Kara Palmer and study co-author Joanne Power University of East AngliaThe researchers analyzed data from 154 studies spanning five decades, with a total of 5,715 participants. In all of these studies, researchers disturbed participants' sleep for one or more nights. In some experiments, participants remained awake for a long period of time. In other cases, they were allowed to sleep less than usual, and in other cases, they were woken up periodically during the night. Each study also measured at least one emotion-related variable after the sleep manipulation, such as participants' mood, responsiveness to emotional stimuli, and measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms.
Overall, the researchers found that the three types of sleep loss led to reduced positive emotions such as joy, happiness, and contentment among participants, as well as increased symptoms of anxiety such as rapid heartbeat and increased anxiety.
“This happened even after short periods of sleep loss, such as staying up an hour or two later than usual or after losing only a few hours of sleep,” Kara Palmer said. “We also found that poor sleep increases anxiety symptoms and reduces arousal in response to emotional stimuli.”
Results for depressive symptoms were lower and less consistent, as were negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety, and stress.
One limitation of the study is that the majority of participants were young, and the average age was 23 years. The researchers said future studies should include a more diverse age sample to better understand how sleep deprivation affects people of different ages. Other directions for future studies could include examining the effects of sleep loss over multiple nights, looking at individual differences to discover why some people are more susceptible than others to the effects of sleep loss, and examining the effects of sleep loss across cultures. Most of the research in the current study was conducted in the United States, the researchers explained. United States and Europe.
“Research has found that more than 30% of adults and up to 90% of teens don't get enough sleep,” Kara Palmer said. “The individual and public health implications of this research are significant in a largely sleep-deprived society. Industries and sectors vulnerable to sleep loss, such as first responders, pilots and truck drivers, must develop and adopt policies that prioritize sleep to mitigate risks to daytime performance and well-being.”
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