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With these data on the table, it is not strange that sleeping problems are beginning to be an issue that also keeps us awake as a society. There is increasing scientific evidence that demonstrates the relationship between chronic sleep deficit and the development of numerous diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and some types of cancer.
Now, a major meta-analysis published in the scientific journal of the American Psychological Association has synthesized more than 50 years of research on sleep deprivation and its relationship with our mood. The result leaves no room for doubt: all forms of sleep loss (total sleep deprivation, partial sleep loss, and sleep fragmentation) produce emotional changes the next day. The strongest and most consistent effects are the reduction of positive mood and the increase in anxiety levels.
“The results of the study are important because they reflect what happens to many people in everyday life. For example, new parents may wake up frequently to feed their children, or people may have their sleep temporarily affected by noises during the night. All of this changes the structure and cohesion of sleep without necessarily changing its duration,” explains Joanne Bower, author of the study and researcher at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, United Kingdom).
The scientist recalls that previous research had already shown that when we are sleep deprived, the connections between the emotional regions of our brain and the regions that should help us control these emotions are reduced. What is new regarding this meta-analysis is that it shows that this association occurs even following losing only one or two hours of sleep in one night. Already then, a decrease in positive mood and an increase in anxiety is observed in the participants. “Emotions govern virtually every aspect of our daily lives, so depriving ourselves of sleep seems to be the best way to choose the worst possible driver,” Bower says.
Psychologist Nuria Roure, member of the Insomnia working group of the Spanish Sleep Society (SES), points out that the research results validate what specialists see every day in their consultations. “Emotional imbalance is, along with physical fatigue, the symptom that people most often report in consultation,” emphasizes the author of I finally sleep (Vergara). This expert shows her satisfaction with the fact that more and more research is focusing her attention on the emotional impact of lack of sleep, an aspect generally less studied than the relationship between rest and certain pathologies.
Roure explains that, if emotions were the pedals of a car, a good rest would allow a correct balance between the use of the accelerator and the brake. Lack of sleep, however, would be the equivalent of driving without brakes: “When we don’t sleep well we let ourselves be carried away more by our most primitive instincts and less by the most rational part of our brain, which is why we have a greater tendency to carry out “more impulsive behaviors, losing our nerves, having more anxiety, eating higher-calorie foods or binge-watching series.” And the problem, according to the psychologist, is that we often enter a perverse cycle for emotional health: if we sleep little, the next day we are more sensitive to emotions and generate higher levels of anxiety than when the morning comes once more. night they are going to make us sleep worse because our brain does not disconnect, so the next day we will be even more tired. And so on in an infinite loop. This circular mechanism would explain why insufficient sleep, according to one study, is one of the main predictors in the development of burnout (professional burnout syndrome).
In the long term, mental health is greatly affected.
As Joanne Bower explains, the meta-analysis only analyzed the immediate effects (the next day) of lack of sleep on emotional health, so it still remains to study what the long-term effects may be, although the scientific evidence in this regard is pretty clear: prolonged periods of sleep deprivation might be associated with poorer long-term mental health. “Exploring whether this is related to changes in our emotional functioning due to sleep loss is an important future direction for research,” suggests the British.
Her opinion is shared by Francesca Cañellas, a psychiatrist at the Multidisciplinary Sleep Unit at the Son Espasses Hospital in Palma de Mallorca, who adds that scientific evidence points to a bidirectional relationship between sleep disorders and mental health problems: “It is estimated that Eight out of ten patients with mental disorders during the acute phase and around three out of ten during follow-up have insomnia. Other studies have also shown that insomnia precedes depression.”
The expert considers that the data from this meta-analysis should be taken into account by political regulators to implement actions that prioritize the population’s rest and promote more rational schedules. Especially important in this sense, according to Cañellas, is the case of the adolescent population, whose school and extracurricular schedules push them towards a chronic sleep deficit.
“In a country that lives in the followingnoon and sleeps late, for teenagers to start classes at eight in the morning is condemning them to being sleep deprived. I see boys and girls in consultation who finish training at 10:30 p.m. If we say that it is advisable to wait regarding three hours before going to sleep following having done intense physical exercise, we are talking regarding young people who fall asleep at 1:30 and then have to wake up at seven in the morning to get to class. “, reflects the psychiatrist, who points out that the study shows that the anxiogenic effects of lack of sleep are even more evident among young adults. “These types of well-founded articles should have an impact on policy, because we are already seeing the terrible mental health epidemic affecting young people. And yes, it is very good to hire more psychiatrists and psychologists, but perhaps investing in prevention would be much better,” she adds.
Nuria Roure speaks in the same sense, pointing out the need for investment in the training of medical professionals in cognitive-behavioral therapy, “which is what has been shown to improve sleep the most and most in the long term.” According to the psychologist, drugs can be helpful at first (“like a crutch in those moments when we are overwhelmed on an emotional level”), but then non-pharmacological therapies are needed that address the problem of lack of sleep at its root. : “If not, we will end up where we are now, being world leaders in the consumption of benzodiazepines, anxiolytics and hypnotics, which have no long-term effectiveness because the underlying problem persists.”
Joanne Bower believes that this and other studies reinforce the idea that sleep should be a public health priority and be promoted in the same way that healthy eating or regular physical exercise are promoted. “If we are able to help improve the sleep health of the population, this is likely to improve many other aspects of physical and mental health and well-being,” she concludes.
