Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine assistant professor of psychiatry Patrick Finan led the study, which is one of the first that compares interrupted and abbreviated sleep and seeks to determine which is the better type in a number of ways.
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As Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend, everyone can “fall back” and get an extra hour of sleep.
By analysing 62 healthy men and women, the researchers exposed them to three sleep experimental conditions. However, come the second night, the group who had to endure forced awakenings had a reduction of their positive moods by 31 percent, while those who had delayed bedtimes only declined by 12.
Drawing on previous research linking a healthy night’s sleep with a lower incidence of mood disorders and cognitive capacity, Ph.D.
Forced awakenings are usually experienced by new parents and on-call health workers, and also on people suffering from insomnia.
Finan said that the study as well suggests that the effects of interrupted sleep on positive mood can be cumulative because the group differences emerged after the 2nd night and continued the day after the third night of the research. Half the people woke up eight times throughout the three nights, while another group was forced to go to bed late for three days but with uninterrupted sleep, according to Live Science. As per researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine, waking up several times during night badly affects one’s mood than sleeping for a shorter duration without being disturbed.
After the first night, those who had 8 forced awakenings and those who had delayed bedtimes both reported low positive mood and high negative mood on a standard mood assessment questionnaire before bedtime. Figures suggest that an estimated 10 percent of the US adult population suffers from insomnia.
Depressed mood is a common symptom of insomnia, Finan added, but the biological reasons for this are poorly understood.
Experts are now convinced that sleep interruptions are largely responsible for the killing of positive moods. After the second night short-sleepers’ positive mood remained largely at the same level. He said, “Many individuals with insomnia achieve sleep in fits and starts throughout the night, and they don’t have the experience of restorative sleep“.
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In another interesting note, Finan observed that those who had interrupted sleep had less slow wave brain patterns while sleeping, or the deep sleep that helps people rest and recover, than those who got similar amounts of sleep continuously. “We saw a drop in slow wave sleep so large and sudden, and it was associated with a striking drop in positive mood that was significantly different than in the other group”.
