PARIS, Dec 23 — Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? It happens to all of us, and now a study suggests that it actually may simply be due to a lack of sleep.

Lower quality sleep, or less of it, can impair emotional functioning, impact positive moods and expose those concerned to a higher risk of symptoms of anxiety.

"In our largely sleep-deprived society, quantifying the effects of sleep loss on emotion is critical for promoting psychological health,” Dr Cara Palmer of Montana State University (USA), and lead author of the study, explains in a statement.

"This study represents the most comprehensive synthesis of experimental sleep and emotion research to date, and provides strong evidence that periods of extended wakefulness, shortened sleep duration, and night time awakenings adversely influence human emotional functioning,” she adds.

This research synthesised no less than five decades of research on sleep deprivation and mood, and is based on the analysis of data from 154 studies involving 5,717 participants.

Participants had their sleep deliberately disrupted by researchers over one or more nights, were kept awake for long periods, slept less than usual, or were woken up regularly during the night, depending on the experiment.

All studies also analysed at least one emotion-related marker, whether self-reported mood, participants’ reaction to emotional stimuli, or symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, the results reveal that sleep deprivation doesn’t just induce fatigue — far from it. It also negatively influences emotional functioning, decreases positive moods, and increases the risk of anxiety and depressive symptoms.

More concretely, no matter what experiment was taken into account, the researchers observed adverse effects on joy, happiness and contentment among the participants in these studies, as well as an increase in anxiety symptoms, reflected in accelerated heart rate.

"This occurred even after short periods of sleep loss, like staying up an hour or two later than usual or after losing just a few of hours of sleep. We also found that sleep loss increased anxiety symptoms and blunted arousal in response to emotional stimuli,” Dr Cara Palmer continued.

The study had certain limitations, such as the lack of diversity in terms of participants’ ages (23 on average) and cultures (USA and Europe only), but it nevertheless enables us to assess the impact that sleep deprivation can have on the mental health of individuals, and the resulting consequences this can have on their personal and professional lives.

"Research has found that more than 30 per cent of adults and up to 90 per cent of teens don’t get enough sleep.

The implications of this research for individual and public health are considerable in a largely sleep-deprived society.

Industries and sectors prone to sleep loss, such as first responders, pilots and truck drivers, should develop and adopt policies that prioritise sleep to mitigate against the risks to daytime function and well-being,” outlined the study lead author. — ETX Studio