Medical research has long suggested that sleeplessness can be bad for our physical health. But, a small from the University of California, Berkeley, has found that it can also impair our social conscience.
Published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Biology, the research looked into three studies that examined how sleep loss affected people鈥檚 altruism and found that limited sleep led to less empathy, volunteering and donations.
鈥淥ver the past 20 years, we have discovered a very intimate link between our sleep health and our mental health. Indeed, we鈥檝e not been able to discover a single major psychiatric condition in which sleep is normal,鈥 Matthew Walker, the study鈥檚 co-author, said in a .
鈥淏ut this new work demonstrates that a lack of sleep not only damages the health of an individual, but degrades social interactions between individuals and, furthermore, degrades the very fabric of human society itself. How we operate as a social species 鈥 and we are a social species 鈥 seems profoundly dependent on how much sleep we are getting.鈥
The report鈥檚 first study looked into the brains of 24 healthy volunteers using a functional magnetic resonance imager after eight hours of sleep and following a night without any sleep.
Researchers discovered that after a restless night, some brain regions that make up the theory of mind network 鈥 which are active when people try to comprehend the wants and needs of others or sympathize with others 鈥 were less active.
鈥淲hen we think about other people, this network engages and allows us to comprehend what other persons鈥 needs are: What are they thinking about? Are they in pain? Do they need help?鈥 Ben Simon, the study鈥檚 lead author, said in the release.
鈥淗owever, this network was markedly impaired when individuals were sleep deprived. It鈥檚 as though these parts of the brain fail to respond when we are trying to interact with other people after not getting enough sleep.鈥
The second study monitored more than 100 individuals online for three or four nights. Researchers measured the participants鈥 sleep quality by counting how long they slept and how often they woke up.
It was discovered that a person鈥檚 declined sleep quality over time correlated significantly with their propensity to want to assist others the next day. Activities impacted could include volunteering, offering to hold the elevator for someone or even helping an injured stranger on the street.
In the final study, three million charity gifts made in the U.S. between 2001 and 2016 were analyzed from a database to see if the introduction of daylight saving time, leading to a possible loss of an hour of sleep, affected donations.
The research found that in areas of the country that did not change their clocks, a decline in charitable gift-giving was not seen as opposed to the areas that did.
The study鈥檚 researchers say that more than half of adults in developed nations don鈥檛 get enough sleep throughout the work week.
鈥淚t is time as a society to abandon the idea that sleep is unnecessary or a waste and, without feeling embarrassed, start getting the sleep that we need,鈥 Simon said.
鈥淚t is the best form of kindness we can offer ourselves, as well as the people around us.鈥
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