Sleepis a fundamental need, while emotions are ubiquitous experiences affecting health, motivation, cognition, relationships, and more (Engen & Anderson, 2018; Ferrer & Mendes, 2018).
Considerable evidence shows poor sleep catalyzes emotional problems across lifespans (Goldstein & Walker, 2014; Gregory et al., 2009).
For example, over 30% of U.S. adults and up to 90% of teenagers fail to get recommended sleep (Basch et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2016). Mobile technology data indicate similarly insufficient sleep worldwide (Walch et al., 2016).
Given sleep’s impact on emotional functioning, these trends hold substantial public health and policy implications regarding matters such as school start times, work schedules, and military operations.
Key Points
Rationale
Sleep plays a critical role in emotional functioning, yet a large portion of the population fails to get adequate sleep (Hafner et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2016).
Quantifying how sleep loss alters emotions is critical for elucidating affective disease pathways and guiding regulations promoting healthy sleep duration.
Method
Thismeta-analysisincluded 154 experimental studies (N= 5,717) manipulating healthy participants’ sleep via total sleep deprivation (TSD), partial sleep restriction (PSR), or sleep fragmentation (SF).
Outcomes were positive affect, negative affect, mood disturbances, emotional valence/arousal, anxiety, and depression.
Inclusion criteria
Sample
Participants were aged 7-79 years old (M= 23.66 years) and 50.14% female. Most studies used young adult samples.
Statistical Measures
Standardized mean differences (Hedges’ g) were calculated for each effect. Multilevel meta-analyses estimated overall effects and moderators.
Results
Emotion Reactivity
Positive Affect, Negative Affect, & Mood Disturbances
Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms
Here are the results summarized based on the study’s hypotheses:
The hypothesis that sleep loss would negatively impact all emotional constructs was supported, but other specific hypotheses regarding dose-response effects, REM vs SWS deprivation, and individual differences were only partially supported or remained inconclusive.
Insight
This meta-analysis shows sleep deprivation consistently reduces positive emotions. All types of sleep loss studied, including truncating time in bed and fragmenting sleep, blunted positive affect.
These effects were more reliable than impacts on negative moods. Emotional numbing also occurred – sleep deficient people had muted arousal to emotional stimuli. Anxiety symptoms rose with inadequate rest regardless of manipulation type.
Changes in general mood disturbances, unpleasantness, and depression were more inconsistent, sometimes increasing under certain sleep loss conditions but not others. Effects depended on factors like the amount of REM versus slow-wave sleep loss (SWS).
In youth, emotional impacts were typically magnified. Taken together, findings cement healthy sleep as crucial for emotional health. With chronic sleep deficiency pervasive in modern society, these shifts likely promote psychiatric problems.
Safeguarding sufficient sleep opportunities through health policies and education is critical, given its clear role in sustaining emotional well-being.
Strengths
Limitations
Implications
Policies should better promote healthy sleep duration to protect mental health.
They also underscore the need for health policies regulating work hours and school schedules to promote sufficient sleep opportunities for mental health. Understanding these emotional pathways is key for elucidating sleep’s role in psychiatric diseases.
References
Basch, C. E., Basch, C. H., Ruggles, K. V., & Rajan, S. (2014). Prevalence of sleep duration on an average school night among 4 nationally representative successive samples of American high school students, 2007–2013.Preventing chronic disease, 11.
Engen, H. G., & Anderson, M. C. (2018). Memory control: A fundamental mechanism of emotion regulation.Trends in cognitive sciences, 22(11), 982-995.
Goldstein, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2014). The role of sleep in emotional brain function.Annual review of clinical psychology, 10, 679-708.
Hafner, M., Stepanek, M., Taylor, J., Troxel, W. M., & van Stolk, C. (2017). Why sleep matters-the economic costs of insufficient sleep: a cross-country comparative analysis.Rand health quarterly, 6(4).
Liu, Y., Wheaton, A. G., Chapman, D. P., & Croft, J. B. (2016). Sleep duration and chronic diseases among US adults age 45 years and older: evidence from the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.Sleep, 39(8), 1421-1427.
Triantafillou, S., Saeb, S., Lattie, E. G., Mohr, D. C., & Kording, K. P. (2019). Relationship between sleep quality and mood: ecological momentary assessment study.JMIR mental health, 6(3), e12613.
Walch, O. J., Cochran, A., & Forger, D. B. (2016). A global quantification of “normal” sleep schedules using smartphone data.Science advances, 2(5), e1501705.
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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
