What it is:
We typically discuss the benefits of sleep within the context of personal health and longevity. While these are valid grounds for a good night’s rest, sleep is also vital for healthy relationships and social connections.
Many recent studies have shown that when we don’t get enough sleep, we become more anxious, less sociable, and even less altruistic or willing to help others. This has implications for our immediate relationships, including those with family members, colleagues, and friends, but also for the broader society, with a whole suite of downstream consequences that either help or hinder our communities. It might seem farfetched to suggest that the sleep you get can profoundly change the world around you, but as the data demonstrates, that may be the case.
The purported claims:
Poor quality sleep makes us:
More anxious
Socially withdrawn
Less able to gauge what others are feeling
Less generous or willing to help others
What the science says:
Anxiety
Sleep does more for us than most people can imagine, and we’re learning more every day about why we should prioritize rest in order to have a healthy mind. There’s abundant evidence that sleep resets our nervous system, sifts out useless information, and supports our neurons in communicating effectively. Sleep is essential for helping us think rationally, maintain a relatively stable mood, and prevent anxiety.
Anxiety is the leading mental health disorder worldwide, thought to affect a quarter of the global population. Acute anxiety, or excessive worrying and rumination, affects nearly everybody from time to time. It typically strikes when we’re overloaded by external stressors that rob us of the time needed to recalibrate each day. Having our sleep cut short or fragmented is also a key factor that leaves us vulnerable to anxiety.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, showed in a study that generally, healthy people who were sleep deprived experienced increased anxiety the following morning. Half of these participants reported clinically-relevant anxiety levels. Brain scans revealed decreased prefrontal cortex function, which is the part of the brain responsible for rational decision-making and executive function. Conversely, parts of the brain involved in emotion regulation, including the amygdala and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, became hyperactive. In other words, these participants experienced emotions that were getting the better of them without the “boss” part of the brain being able to keep things in check.
Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep that is particularly rich in slow-wave activity appears to put the breaks on anxiety and prevent it from manifesting the next day. Slow-wave or “deep” sleep reengages the prefrontal cortex and offers a calming dose of parasympathetic activity within our nervous system. A slow heart rate promotes rest and repair and generally helps us feel calmer.
Social Interactions
The same research group has studied how sleep loss affects our social interactions. In an interesting experiment, they monitored how close people wanted to stand to a stranger after a good night of sleep versus a poor night of sleep. They found that after a night of total sleep deprivation, participants wanted to put more distance between themselves and the approaching stranger. This could be due to over-activation in parts of the brain that predict the likelihood of threat. In other words, these data suggest that we might feel more threatened by strangers when we haven’t slept well.
The researchers also had both well-slept and sleep-deprived participants conduct a simple interview where they were allowed to talk freely about a range of topics. Independent volunteers watched sections of these recorded interviews and had to decide who they would prefer to collaborate on a project with if given the opportunity, not knowing that some of the participants had slept poorly prior to doing the interview.
Interestingly, the poorly-slept participants received lower scores across the board. This suggests that when we are poorly slept, we may be sending subconscious cues to peers that makes us less attractive to work or interact with, which has dramatic implications in the workplace and among other team efforts.
Perhaps most fascinating of all, those who judged the interview footage in this study reported feeling lonelier themselves after watching the sleep-deprived participants’ video footage. This suggests that not only does a lack of sleep affect our own social interactions, but that negative interactions might be contagious.
Another recent study had participants assess photographs of happy, angry, fearful, or neutral faces and score attractiveness, healthiness, and trustworthiness after an 8-hour sleep episode or after total sleep deprivation. Faces were scored as less attractive and less trustworthy by sleep-deprived participants.
Both of these studies compared a healthy night of sleep to zero sleep, and the reality is that a night of absolutely no sleep is - thankfully - not the norm for most people. It’s unclear what proportion of sleep loss is required for these negative social effects to start to manifest, and more research is needed in this area.
Altruism
Not only does sleep loss make it difficult for us to gauge the thoughts and feelings of others, and make us more likely to withdraw from social interactions, but some evidence shows that it makes us less inclined to help others too.
UC Berkeley researchers investigated the effects of just one hour of sleep loss on altruistic behavior by assessing the number of charitable donations given around the transition to daylight savings time in the spring of each year. They found that people gave significantly fewer donations on the first day of daylight savings time compared to the days and weeks preceding and following it. Conversely, there were no significant changes in charitable contributions in the transition back to standard time in the fall, when people are given an additional hour of sleep.
In a carefully-controlled in-lab study where participants were exposed to both 8-hour and total sleep deprivation conditions, they demonstrated a greater desire to help others after a good night of sleep, but not after being sleep deprived. Interestingly, it didn’t matter whether those that needed help were friends (the theory of “kin selection” states that we’re more likely to help those we are related to or familiar with) or strangers. This suggests that everyone stands to benefit from the sleep of others. Interactions as seemingly minor as those with sales assistants, customer service representatives, servers, a repair person, or anyone else who may be in a position to solve a problem or offer help all stand to benefit from those individuals getting better sleep.
Insufficient sleep impairs mood, lowers empathy, and likely makes us less sensitive to perceiving the distress of others. Being attuned to the health and well-being of our community is essential for pro-social efforts, including problem-solving and civility. Could the sleep loss epidemic in the United States be contributing to the divisive political state and social health disparities seen in today’s society?
Our take:
Sleep is vital for our brains to comprehend what happens during waking life. Research has shown that those who do not sleep the night after a traumatic event are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress symptoms than those who are able to rest. Without sleep, we can't process the spectrum of emotions we experience throughout the day.
Akin to the oxygen mask on the plane analogy, taking care of ourselves by getting sufficient rest and sleep prevents anxiety within ourselves, which may, in turn, make others less anxious. Rest provides us with the mental resources needed to help others, improve our communities, and cultivate meaningful connections.
Invest in your sleep not only for your physical health and longevity but as an unassuming, radical way of changing the world. When you feel better and are able to do your best work, those around you take notice and are inspired themselves to do better. To show up more powerfully for your family, colleagues, and the wider community, take the time to recalibrate your mind each night so that you can live life more fully by day.
Will this benefit me?
Sleep loss increases activity within the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) nervous system. This includes an increased heart rate, sweating, and vigilance, or those sensations we typically associate with high-risk situations. On the odd occasion, we can bounce back from this just fine, but if we experience chronic sleep loss, we face hormone disruption and mood problems as a result of exhausting the nervous system.
When we enter “fight or flight” mode, we are primed to tackle an immediate threat by either lashing out at it or fleeing. This is useful in cases of true crisis, but this mindset isn’t conducive to solving complex problems or issues requiring careful consideration.
Consider healthy sleep an essential component of keeping yourself regulated. It allows you to do your best thinking, offers space for creative ideas to emerge, and - importantly - for connecting with those around you.
Still curious to try it? If you do, here’s what to keep an eye on:
Remember that even with the best intentions, we all experience unforeseen circumstances that throw our schedules off kilter. These can disrupt our sleep, and that’s simply a part of life. What matters is being in the best shape you can be before these obstacles arise, allowing you to bounce back quickly and relatively unscathed.
Give yourself a break when you have a bad day, and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. But return the favor and be a safe refuge for others in their time of need by resting well each night. Foster healthy relationships in this way and watch your life transform.
References and additional materials:
Sleep and anxiety - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34979437/
Systematic review of emotions and sleep - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25697832/
Overanxious and under slept - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31685950/
Sleep loss, social withdrawal, loneliness - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30108218/
Sleep loss and faces - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35529050/
Sleep loss and the socio-emotional brain -https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32299657/
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