Sleep - PsyBlog

What Your Sleep Reveals About Your Personality

Introverts and extraverts react differently to sleep deprivation.

Introverts are naturally better at dealing with sleep deprivation after a busy day of social interactions, research finds.

Despite being kept awake for 22 hours, introverts remained more alert than extroverts when tested the next day.

It may be because introverts generally have higher cortical arousal.

In contrast, extraverts are vulnerable to sleep loss after interacting with many people during the day.

After being kept awake all night, they were more sleepy the next day than introverts.

Dr Tracy L. Rupp, who led the study, said:

“Extroverts exposed to socially enriched environments showed greater vulnerability to subsequent sleep deprivation than did extroverts exposed to an identical but socially impoverished environment

The ability of introverts to resist sleep loss was relatively unaffected by the social environment.

Overall, the present results might also be interpreted more generally to suggest that waking experiences, along with their interaction with individual characteristics, influence vulnerability to subsequent sleep loss.”

The study included 48 people who did a series of tasks for 12 hours either on their own or in a group.

Everyone was then kept awake for 22 hours and given periodic tests of alertness.

Although introverts and extroverts usually slept about the same on a normal night, it was the introverts who did better on the tests after being sleep deprived.

The introvert’s ability to resist sleep loss could be down to genetic factors.

Social interactions are often complex and require people to regulate their attention and alertness.

As a result, more sleep may be required to recover.

Dr Rupp said:

“These data have practical relevance for occupational shift work and military operational assignments, and theoretical implications for understanding individual-difference factors influencing vulnerability or resiliency to sleep loss.”

The study was published in the journal Sleep (Rupp et al., 2010).

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Memory Doubled By Playing These Sounds During Sleep

These sounds played during sleep can enhance both memory and sleep.

Sounds played during sleep can enhance memory and may even benefit sleep, research finds.

The sounds, though, need to be in sync with the brain’s natural oscillations to work.

In the study 11 people were played ‘pink noise’ while they slept.

This sounds like gentle hissing that goes up and down — much like the lapping of waves on the beach.

Here is some pink noise to try out:

Measuring the electrical activity in the brain, they were able to synchronise the sounds with people’s brain waves.

When synchronised, people were better able to remember a list of words they had previously learnt.

In fact, they remembered nearly twice as many words.

If the sounds were out of sync, though, the effect was not seen.

Dr. Jan Born, who led the study, said:

“The beauty lies in the simplicity to apply auditory stimulation at low intensities — an approach that is both practical and ethical, if compared for example with electrical stimulation — and therefore portrays a straightforward tool for clinical settings to enhance sleep rhythms.”

The researchers think that keeping the sounds in sync may also help people to sleep.

They observed that the brain waves related to sleep were stronger when the sounds were in sync.

Dr Born said:

“…it might be even used to enhance other brain rhythms with obvious functional significance — like rhythms that occur during wakefulness and are involved in the regulation of attention.”

The problem for the home experimenter, though, is that the sounds need to be in sync.

Dr Born said:

“Importantly, the sound stimulation is effective only when the sounds occur in synchrony with the ongoing slow oscillation rhythm during deep sleep.

We presented the acoustic stimuli whenever a slow oscillation “up state” was upcoming, and in this way we were able to strengthen the slow oscillation, showing higher amplitude and occurring for longer periods.”

The study was published in the journal Neuron (Ngo et al., 2013).

The Seeds of Depression And Anxiety Could Lie In Childhood Sleep

Is a child’s sleep schedule a ticking time bomb for their mental health?

Not getting enough sleep as a child increases the risk of developing emotional disorders later on, research finds.

Inadequate sleep creates more negative emotions and alters positive emotional experiences.

For example, after just two nights of poor sleep, children cannot get the same pleasure out of positive experiences, researchers found.

The children also found it more difficult to recall these positive experiences later on.

Poor sleep is already known to have all sorts of damaging effects, such as reducing the ability to:

Self-monitor.
Read other people’s body language.
Identify the emotions of other people.
Exercise self-control.

Dr Candice Alfano, who led the study, said:

“Healthy sleep is critical for children’s psychological well-being.

Continually experiencing inadequate sleep can eventually lead to depression, anxiety and other types of emotional problems.

Parents, therefore, need to think about sleep as an essential component of overall health in the same way they do nutrition, dental hygiene and physical activity.

If your child has problems waking up in the morning or is sleepy during the day, then their nighttime sleep is probably inadequate.

This can result for several reasons, such as a bedtime that is too late, non-restful sleep during the night or an inconsistent sleep schedule.”

For the research, 50 children between the ages of 7 and 11 had their sleep restricted for a temporary period.

The researchers concluded that, over time, poor sleep like this is likely to increase the risk of depression and anxiety.

People without the right amount of sleep do not seek out positive and rewarding experiences that require effort.

Dr Alfano said:

“There are multiple emotional processes that seem to be disrupted by poor sleep.

For example, our ability to self-monitor, pick up on others’ nonverbal cues and accurately identify others’ emotions diminishes when sleep is inadequate.

Combine this with less impulse control, a hallmark feature of the teenage years, and sleep deprivation can create a ‘perfect storm’ for experiencing negative emotions and consequences.”

The study was published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews (Palmer & Alfano, 2016).

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This Sleep Pattern Accelerates Memory Loss – Possible Link to Alzheimer’s

Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

Sleep disruptions similar to jet lag could cause memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s disease, research finds.

It’s well-known by scientists that there’s a link between Alzheimer’s and sleep, but not what causes what.

Professor Gregory Brewer, who led the research, said:

“The issue is whether poor sleep accelerates the development of Alzheimer’s disease or vice versa.

It’s a chicken-or-egg dilemma, but our research points to disruption of sleep as the accelerator of memory loss.”

The research gave jet-lag to mice that had been genetically engineered to suffer from Alzheimer’s.

They did this by moving the dark period every three days to a different time — which is what causes jet-lag.

The jet-lagged mice had lower levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

This suggests it could be poor sleep that is contributing to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Brewer said:

“This study suggests that clinicians and caregivers should add good sleep habits to regular exercise and a healthy diet to maximize good memory.”

Dementia and sleep

Many other studies have found a link between dementia and sleep.

People who sleep for too little or too long are at a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

Indeed, people who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, one study found.

However, those who sleep for between 5.5 and 7.5 hours per night do not see declines in their cognitive health, even when suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.

Also, getting less REM sleep — the phase in which we dream — is linked to dementia.

During sleep the brain cycles between periods of deep sleep and then up towards shallower periods of sleep in which we tend to dream, whether we remember those dreams or not.

During REM sleep the eyes move rapidly from side-to-side (hence Rapid Eye Movement Sleep).

Sleep apnea has also been linked to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The most common signs of sleep apnea, which affects 30 percent of older people, include:

Loud snoring,
gasping for air during sleep,
breathing stopping for brief periods during the night,
morning headache,
and daytime sleepiness and irritability.

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Brewer et al., 2015).

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