Instead of lying awake worrying, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when making decisions both big and small. And there’s actually a scientific basis for this advice. Sleep can influence our response to emotional situations, and helps us to manage our mental health.
To understand why sleep and emotions are so connected, it’s important to first understand what happens in the brain when we encounter something emotive.
Two main brain regions interact to create emotional responses. The first is the limbic system, which is located deep in our brain. This acts as our emotion centre, quickly evaluating a situation and helping us to decide how to react. Historically, this region may have been important for humanity’s survival, as it helps us react quickly in certain situations – if we encounter a dangerous predator, for example.
But most of the time we need to adjust our initial emotional response. This is where the second region – the prefrontal cortex – comes in. Located just behind our forehead, the prefrontal cortex helps us to increase or decrease our emotional responses as necessary. So if we see a predator (such as a bear) in the zoo, the prefrontal cortex tells us we don’t need to panic because it’s in an enclosure.
These regions need to be well-connected in order to effectively generate and adjust our emotional responses. This is where sleep comes in. When we’re sleep deprived, the connections between these areas weaken, making the reaction in the limbic system stronger. Sleep loss not only increases our reaction to stressful events during the day, it also makes these reactions harder to change. This may be particularly pronounced if you lose REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.
Studies show that getting poor sleep makes us more likely to choose less effective ways of managing our emotions which could have a knock-on effect for our mental health. Imagine you’re experiencing a difficult work problem. If you’re well rested, you are more likely to be able to effectively problem solve, fixing the issue. But if you’re sleep deprived, you might avoid dealing with the problem. Over time, this could have a negative effect on wellbeing.
Sleep is also crucial for processing and consolidating memories from our day. When we have emotional experiences, sleep both helps us remember these events and remove the associated feelings. This happens in REM sleep, when activity in most brain regions is similar to when we’re awake. By reactivating memories during REM sleep, the associated feelings can be removed from the content of the memory. This is why “sleeping on it” really can help you feel better in the morning. Indeed, studies have shown that, over time, improving sleep can lead to less anxiety, depression, and stress, and increased life satisfaction.
– Joanne Bower is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of East Anglia. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
To Learn More:
- To manage stress, sleep better. To sleep better, keep a good routine and manage stress.
- Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
- NICE in the UK issues recommendation for Sleepio app, the digital cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia by Big Health
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