The importance of getting a proper night’s sleep can never be emphasized enough.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia have found sleep is linked with stress management. People tend to react better to both negative AND positive events when they get more sleep. Meaning, someone reacts more emotionally to stressful events following a night of shorter sleep, and they don’t find as much joy when good things happen.
Why is this result important? Other research has shown that being unable to manage stress or maintain positive emotions puts someone at risk of inflammation and even an earlier death.
Read a snippet from the research below:
“‘When people experience something positive, such as getting a hug or spending time in nature, they typically feel happier that day,’ says Nancy Sin, assistant professor in UBC’s department of psychology. ‘But we found that when a person sleeps less than their usual amount, they don’t have as much of a boost in positive emotions from their positive events.’
People also reported a number of stressful events in their daily lives, including arguments, social tensions, work and family stress, and being discriminated against. When people slept less than usual, they responded to these stressful events with a greater loss of positive emotions. This has important health implications: previous research by Sin and others shows that being unable to maintain positive emotions in the face of stress puts people at risk of inflammation and even an earlier death.
Using daily diary data from a national U.S. sample of almost 2,000 people, Sin analyzed sleep duration and how people responded to negative and positive situations the next day. The participants reported on their experiences and the amount of sleep they had the previous night in daily telephone interviews over eight days.
‘The recommended guideline for a good night’s sleep is at least seven hours, yet one in three adults don’t meet this standard,’ says Sin. ‘A large body of research has shown that inadequate sleep increases the risk for mental disorders, chronic health conditions, and premature death. My study adds to this evidence by showing that even minor night-to-night fluctuations in sleep duration can have consequences in how people respond to events in their daily lives.'”
IMI has a wide range of services to help you in manage the stress in your life.
