A new study made by scientists from harvard universities y Pennsylvania in USA points out that the Humans They’re not made to stay up past midnight. The report mentions that resting following this time generates changes in the person’s brain and alters the way he interacts with the rest of the world.
The investigation “The Mind After Midnight: Nighttime Wakefulness, Behavioral Dysregulation, and Psychopathology” was published in the magazine “Frontiers in Network Physiology” and its main finding determines that people who perform nocturnal activities and who stay awake until following 00:00 hours present neurophysiological changes in their brains which have as effects, among several others, the transformation of the control over their impulses.
Sleeping late has its consequences
according to a communiqué published by the Hospital General de Massachusetts According to the study, staying awake past midnight makes a person more likely to view the world negatively and engage in harmful behaviors or addictive behaviors, such as substance use or gambling, without fully thinking regarding the impact.
Additionally, if a human experiences difficulty falling asleep prior to midnight or if you feel active during the early morning, you probably have a cognitive dysregulation which becomes apparent the next day. In other words, sleeping following midnight produces changes in the way we understand how we live and in the way we react to what happens to us.
“The basic idea is that, from a high-level global evolutionary point of view, the internal circadian biological clock is tuned to processes that promote sleep, not wakefulness, following midnight”indicates Dr. Elizabeth B. Klermanresearcher at Department of Neurology of Hospital General de Massachusetts and author of the study.
Clearly clarifies that the influence of the circadian rhythm on brain activities changes throughout 24 hours and ends up affecting the way we process our experiences and respond to the outside world. In other words, humans respond more positively during the day because circadian influence is highest in the morning and lowest at night.
In addition, the body it produces more dopamine at night, which can cause people to engage in risky behavior during these hours.
A hypothesis related to sleep habits
Although the researchers of this study acknowledge that more research is still needed on the subject, they cite an example from 2016 that indicates that “the risk of suicide was three times greater than midnight and 6 in the morning, than at any other time of the day”.
“The suicidepreviously inconceivable, emerges as an escape from loneliness and pain, and, before the costs of suicide are considered, the student has acquired the means and is prepared to act at a time when no one is awake to stop him.”indicates the study.
However, while the research can be interesting and revealing, it is important to remember that it is still a hypothesis. Clearly and the rest of the study authors point out that more related factors need to be investigated to make sure they are protecting those who are at risk from the night watch.
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