Most of us know that lack of sleep has a profound effect on how we can function on a daily basis. From irritability and growing clumsiness to more susceptibility to colds and chronic diseases, there is enough research to pursue it. Now, a major new study also confirms that sleep deprivation can deprive life of joy.
Nancy Cine, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, said that even during sleep periods, normal night-time fluctuations can be a result of how people react to the events of their daily lives.
Sin and colleagues used survey data from about 2,000 adults aged 33-84. After evaluating their underlying conditions, participants were asked for eight consecutive days about their sleep duration, daily stress, and experiences of positive and negative events.
“When people feel something positive, like hugging or spending time in nature, they usually feel happier that day,” Cine explained.
“But we found that when a person gets less sleep than their normal dose, their positive events do not increase their positive emotions as much.”
Fortunately, this effect goes the other way. Prolonged sleep makes positive events feel better, and protects against the effects of daily stress. The team found that this effect is even greater in people with chronic health problems such as chronic pain.
“For those in a state of long-term well-being, we found that long-term sleep – compared to a normal one’s sleep period – received a better response to positive experiences the next day,” Cine said.
Unexpectedly, the researchers found no link between sleep duration and negative reactions. This suggests that sleep is particularly important for positivity, the team noted in their paper, and that it is important to look at both the positive and negative effects when examining sleep.
They also did not find that reactions to daytime events predicted the quality of subsequent sleep, as previously shown in some studies, but not in others.
Sin and the team caution that their study has many limitations because their data rely on patient memory, which is not always accurate. But unlike laboratory conditions, this is one of the first studies to examine these effects of sleep in a natural state, and its data may be useful for future investigations into long-term outcomes.
Sleep clearly needs to be prioritized in our lives, but it can be said to be much easier than this. Recent studies have shown how the stress associated with our ability to sleep is intertwined, as both physiological processes share the same neural network.
So it’s no surprise that epidemics cause us to experience collective stress that affects our sleep and even our dreams.
But before the changing events in this world, research has consistently shown that many of us in Western countries do not get enough sleep. U.S. One-third of adults report less than the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep, and 12 percent of Australians get less than 5.5 hours.
That said, if it were easier to prioritize sleep, many people probably wouldn’t have trouble doing so.
Other factors, such as stress and prolonged health conditions, disconnection from our natural sleep cycles, shift work or doing multiple jobs, and loneliness, make it very difficult to get the recommended amount of dry time.
Here are some great tips for dealing with sleep deprivation; But if we can shift some of these big issues affecting the larger world, it seems that many of us will have the opportunity to experience not only the health consequences, but also more joy in life.
This research was published in Health Psychology.
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