Category: Sleep

The Personality Trait Linked To Perfect Sleep

The trait can be increased using psychological exercises.

The trait can be increased using psychological exercises.

Optimistic people tend to sleep the best, research finds.

People who are hopeful about the future were 78 percent more likely to report very good quality sleep.

Positive people also reported getting a good amount of sleep: six to nine hours per night.

Finally, optimists were much less likely to report any symptoms of insomnia or daytime sleepiness.

The reason optimism is linked to better sleep could be that it promotes positive coping.

People who cope adaptively with stress in life tend to seek support from others, eat properly, exercise regularly and anticipate stressful episodes.

The good news is that optimism is not fixed in stone.

Exercises such as visualising your ‘best possible self‘ have been shown to increase optimism.

Inadequate sleep is linked to an increased risk of many chronic diseases, said Professor Rosalba Hernandez, the study’s first author, said:

“The lack of healthy sleep is a public health concern, as poor sleep quality is associated with multiple health problems, including higher risks of obesity, hypertension and all-cause mortality.

Dispositional optimism — the belief that positive things will occur in the future — has emerged as a psychological asset of particular salience for disease-free survival and superior health.”

The study included 3,548 people across three large US cities.

They completed measures of optimism and reported on their sleep quality.

People who are optimistic tend to agree strongly with statements like “I’m always optimistic about my future” and strongly disagree with statements like  “I hardly expect things to go my way.”

Some participants were brought into the lab to have their sleep quality directly measured.

Professor Hernandez explained what the study found:

“Results from this study revealed significant associations between optimism and various characteristics of self-reported sleep after adjusting for a wide array of variables, including socio-demographic characteristics, health conditions and depressive symptoms.”

Optimism promotes adaptive coping, said Professor Hernandez:

“Optimists are more likely to engage in active problem-focused coping and to interpret stressful events in more positive ways, reducing worry and ruminative thoughts when they’re falling asleep and throughout their sleep cycle.”

The study was published in the journal Behavioral Medicine (Hernandez et al., 2019).

What Your Bedtime Reveals About Your Personality (M)

Your bedtime routines could reveal a lot about your personality traits, such as conscientiousness and the propensity to take risks.

Your bedtime routines could reveal a lot about your personality traits, such as conscientiousness and the propensity to take risks.

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These Sleep Patterns Are Linked To 50% Increased Dementia Risk & Memory Loss (M)

Are you sleeping right? How your sleep patterns might shape your cognitive destiny.

Are you sleeping right? How your sleep patterns might shape your cognitive destiny.

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How Winter Secretly Damages Your Sleep Patterns (M)

How daylight exposure affects our internal body clocks, impacting our sleep patterns — especially in winter.

How daylight exposure affects our internal body clocks, impacting our sleep patterns -- especially in winter.

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Sleep: 10 Fascinating Psychology Studies To Know

Including: how naps affect the brain, how winter changes our sleep and how to wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Including: how naps affect the brain, how winter changes our sleep and how to wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Sleep and mental health are irrevocably intertwined — too little or even too much can both be injurious to mental and physical health.

Yet it seems to be a state over which we have so little control.

Sleep has naturally fascinated researchers, who have asked how naps affect the brain, how winter affects our sleep and how to wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Studies have also explored how lack of sleep affects our emotions and whether, if we cannot sleep, we become a different person after midnight.

So, here are 10 psychology studies from the members-only section of PsyBlog covering the latest sleep science.

(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)

1.

Sleep: The Ideal Amount For Optimal Mental Health (M)

Disruption of deep sleep, which occurs more during the first part of the night, is linked to memory problems and the build-up of proteins in the brain that are linked to dementia.

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2.

Waking 100 Times A Night Is Normal And May Indicate Healthy Sleep (M)

The reason for these ultra-short awakenings is partly related to memory, the researchers think.

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3.

How Your Mind Changes After Midnight (M)

We ruminate at night and it becomes more difficult to control ourselves.

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4.

The Advice This Sleep Scientist Gives Every Insomnia Patient (M)

A sleep habit many people develop that unfortunately causes insomnia.

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5.

Why In Winter It Feels Like You’re Running On Empty (M)

Sleep adapts to the seasons and human physiology is ‘down-regulated’ in the winter.

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6.

How Lack Of Sleep Affects People’s Empathy (M)

Around half of people in developed societies do not get enough sleep.

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7.

How To Wake Up Feeling Refreshed (M)

“How you wake up each day is very much under your own control, based on how you structure your life and your sleep.” – Professor Matthew Walker

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8.

The Unusual Sleep Disorders That Are Difficult To Treat (M)

Parasomnias include a whole range of sleep disorders that are surprisingly difficult to treat.

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9.

How A Daytime Nap Affects Your Brain Volume (M)

There is some stigma around napping, perhaps partly because excessive daytime napping can be a sign of Alzheimer’s.

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10.

Sleep Is At The Heart Of Almost All Mental Health Issues (M)

Whether it is anxiety, schizophrenia, Tourette’s or depression, all have circadian rhythm disruption in common.

Read more

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What Your Bedtime Reveals About Your IQ

Larks tend to rise earlier while owls stay up late — each type extends the part of the day at which they feel their best.

Larks tend to rise earlier while owls stay up late — each type extends the part of the day at which they feel their best.

Morning types or ‘larks’ have superior verbal IQ, research finds.

Morning types are people who prefer to do demanding things earlier in the day, whereas evening types consider their best time to be later on.

Naturally, larks also tend to rise earlier while owls stay up late — each type extends the part of the day at which they feel their best.

The results come as a rebuff to other studies that have found the reverse, that it is owls that have the IQ advantage.

Dr Stuart Fogel, study co-author, how his study is different:

“Once you account for key factors including bedtime and age, we found the opposite to be true, that morning types tend to have superior verbal ability.

This outcome was surprising to us and signals this is much more complicated that anyone thought before.”

The study included 61 people whose ‘morningness’ or ‘eveningness’ was assessed, along with their cognitive abilities.

The results showed that people who were at their best in the morning scored higher on tests of verbal IQ.

Verbal IQ refers to being able to use language to achieve goals.

Critically, the researchers had to account for the fact that young people as a group tend to be evening types.

Young people tend to be evening types

The fact that young people tend to be evening types may make it harder for them to get the best out of the school day, said Dr Fogel:

“A lot of school start times are not determined by our chronotypes but by parents and work-schedules, so school-aged kids pay the price of that because they are evening types forced to work on a morning type schedule.

For example, math and science classes are normally scheduled early in the day because whatever morning tendencies they have will serve them well.

But the AM is not when they are at their best due to their evening type tendencies.

Ultimately, they are disadvantaged because the type of schedule imposed on them is basically fighting against their biological clock every day.”

The study also found that people with regular daily habits tended to perform the best.

Dr Fogel said:

“Our brain really craves regularity and for us to be optimal in our own rhythms is to stick to that schedule and not be constantly trying to catch up.”

The study was published in the journal Current Research in Behavioral Sciences (Gibbings et al., 2022).

The 4 Sleep-Wake Patterns That Explain How Energy Levels Fluctuate (M)

Long-held beliefs about sleep-wake patterns challenged: around half of all people are neither ‘larks’ or ‘owls’.

Long-held beliefs about sleep-wake patterns challenged: around half of all people are neither 'larks' or 'owls'.

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