After a bad night's sleep, it's possible that you're not going to be in the best moods. But as stated in a new study, your bad mood may be occurring due to lack of quality sleep, rather than a shortage of quantity.
Published in the journal Sleep, the research found that people whose sleep was repeatedly interrupted for 3 successive nights expressed considerably worse mood than those who had less sleep due to later bedtimes.
According to lead study author Patrick Finan, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, and associates reports their data signify sleep interruption is more disadvantageous to mood than lack of sleep, which may give idea on the connection between depression andinsomnia.
As per Medical News Today, the National Sleep Foundation reportedly stated that adults aged 18-64 should plan to get around 7-9 hours of sleep every night, while those aged 65 and older should get around 7-8 hours of sleep each night. The Foundation says that getting adequate sleep can help improve the productivity, immune system and mood.
But to a greater extent, studies are showing that the quality of sleep is just as essential as period of sleep. Finan said that when your sleep is disturbed all through the night, you don't have the chance to develop through the sleep stages to have the amount of slow-wave sleep that is key to the sensation of restoration.
Interrupted Sleep Leads to Reduction in Positive Mood
Finan and his colleagues determined the outcome of disturbed sleep on mood in their experiment of 62 healthy men and women who, over 3 successive nights in a clinical research suite, were randomized to one of three sleep cases.
One group had undisturbed sleep every night, one group had late bedtimes, while the remaining group was intentionally awakened eight times during sleep each night.
The sleep stages of each subject were supervised using polysomnography, which records brain waves, blood oxygen levels, breathing, heart rate and eye and leg movements during sleep.
At the end of each night, participants were asked to record how firmly they felt positive or negative emotions, such as anger or cheerfulness, which the experts evaluated to conclude with their mood.
The group says that there were no essential variations in negative mood between the late sleep group and disturbed sleep group on any of the 3 days, signifying that interrupted sleep has a more unfavorable effect on positive mood.
