How Your Sleep Quality Affects Alzheimer’s Risk (M)
Sleep can help to clear the brain of toxic substances that lead to Alzheimer’s disease.
Category: Sleep
The Biggest Reason People Make Mistakes (M)
In this state, people are particularly vulnerable to distractions.
The Music That Helps People Sleep (M)
The most popular genre of music for better sleep.
The Sleep Pattern Linked To Better Health
The sleep pattern is linked to eating more healthy foods and having steadier eating patterns.
The sleep pattern is linked to eating more healthy foods and having steadier eating patterns.
Early risers tend to be more healthy in comparison to night owls, new research finds.
People who prefer to rise early and go to bed early eat more healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables, and they have steadier eating patterns.
Night owls, though, tend to consume more sugar, alcohol and fast food.
Night owls are more likely to suffer from both heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Dr Suzana Almoosawi, the study’s first author, said:
“We have found that your genes, ethnicity and gender determine the likelihood of you being a morning or evening type.
In adulthood, being an evening chronotype is associated with greater risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and this may be potentially due to the poorer eating behaviour and diet of people with evening chronotype.
Our review also found that people who have a poorer control of their diabetes are more likely to be evening types.”
One way of shifting towards being a morning person is to get outside more.
Daylight exposure is linked to earlier sleep and waking.
Dr Almoosawi said:
“In teenagers, we also find that evening chronotype is related to more erratic eating behaviour and poorer diet.
This could have important implications to health in adulthood as most dietary habits are established in adolescence.”
The conclusions come from a review of many different studies on nutrition and sleep.
Dr Leonidas G Karagounis, study co-author, said:
“…studies suggest that an evening chronotype is associated with lower intake of fruits and vegetables, and higher intake of energy drinks, alcoholic, sugary and caffeinated beverages, as well as higher energy intake from fat.
Further research on the best methods to assess an individual’s chronotype and how this may affect their long-term cardiometabolic health can potentially guide the development of health promotion strategies aimed at preventing and treating chronic diseases based on an individual’s chronotype.”
The study was published in the journal Advances in Nutrition (Almoosawi et al., 2018).
What Your Sleep Reveals About Your Personality
Introverts and extraverts react differently to sleep deprivation.
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).
The One Relationship Quality That Improves Your Sleep
This is how your relationship affects your sleep.
This is how your relationship affects your sleep.
Having a responsive partner is linked to better sleep, research finds.
Responsiveness means more than just listening, it is being tuned in to your partner’s needs and feeling compassion.
The most powerful way of being responsive is firstly, listening to and understanding what they are going through and secondly, responding with sympathy and compassion.
Responsiveness creates a sense of validation and feeling cared for.
Dr Emre Selçuk, the study’s lead author, said:
“Our findings show that individuals with responsive partners experience lower anxiety and arousal, which in turn improves their sleep quality.”
Sleep has the most restorative effect when it is high quality and uninterrupted.
People sleep better when they feel safe and secure, Dr Selçuk said:
“Having responsive partners who would be available to protect and comfort us should things go wrong is the most effective way for us humans to reduce anxiety, tension, and arousal.”
The conclusions come from 698 married and cohabiting couples.
All completed measures of partner responsiveness and any sleep problems.
The results revealed that those who felt the most cared for, validated and understood had the best sleep.
Dr Selçuk said:
“Taken together, the corpus of evidence we obtained in recent years suggests that our best bet for a happier, healthier, and a longer life is having a responsive partner.”
The study was published in the journal Social Personality and Psychological Science (Selcuk et al., 2016).
The Sleep Pattern That Indicates Good Mental Health (S)
This sleep pattern was also linked to lower blood pressure and less risk of heart disease.
The Overnight Key To Fighting Loneliness (S)
Almost half of all Americans report feeling lonely or left out.
The Neural Link Between Depression And Sleep Identified (S)
Why 75% of depressed people also report sleep problems like insomnia or difficulties falling asleep.
The Psychological Cause of 10% Of Car Accidents (S)
Up to 10% of road traffic accidents have this psychological cause.
