12/22/2023

How Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Mood

Positive emotions suffer

For most of us, one of the fastest ways to wake up on the wrong side of the bed is to not spend enough time in it. Researchers have spent decades trying to understand exactly how and why losing sleep makes us feel so "off," and a new analysis of more than 50 years worth of data has allowed researchers to tease apart the interactions between sleep deprivation and emotion. It's the first large-scale study of its kind to explore the connection between the two since 1996, and provides a more nuanced picture of how our nocturnal routines and our feelings interact.

"Back in 1996, there were so few studies that looked at sleep and daytime functioning, and since then, the field has absolutely expanded," said Jo Bower, a lecturer and researcher at the school of psychology at the University of East Anglia, in the U.K. Today, there's enough data for researchers like Bower to compare the effects of different types of sleep deprivation, such as staying up late, sleeping for shorter than a typical amount of time, and waking up periodically throughout the night.

In her new study, published Dec. 21 by the American Psychological Association, Bower and her colleagues at institutions in Colorado, Montana and Texas found all three types of sleep loss increased feelings of emotional numbness and symptoms of anxiety, while decreasing positive emotions such as happiness and contentment.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.