13 Dec Sleep Extension Therapy Improves Mood in Young Adults
Balancing study, work and a social life while developing impulse control leaves little room for sleep. This may lead to young Australians being susceptible to sleep related mood disorders. Sleep duration in young adults (18-25) is lower than in any other age group, with a later sleep onset time and average sleep duration. This is most evident in university students. The brain continues to develop until approximately 25 years of age, with important changes in the prefrontal cortex associated with emotional regulation, self-evaluation, impulse control and planning. Sleep is vital to this development and when insufficient, can lead to poor judgment and impulse control and mood disorders like anxiety and depression.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 30.6% of 18-25 year olds suffered from mental illness in 2020 compared with 26% of middle aged individuals, making young adults the demographic most susceptible to mood disorders. A recent study by postdoctoral researchers Parsons and Young et al. of the psychology division of King’s College London aimed to assess the impact of sleep duration on sleep quality and mood in young adults.
Participants were 72 18-24 year old university students who reported consistently achieving less than seven hours of sleep in the two weeks prior to study. In the first half of the study; days 1-7, all subjects observed their normal sleep patterns, completing daily questionnaires via phone app. From days 8-14 half of the subjects were instructed to continue their normal sleeping habits while the other half were instructed to extend their normal sleeping time by 90 minutes. All subjects reported sleep quality and duration each morning via the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Sampling of emotional state was conducted at random six times daily via the Responses to Positive Effect Questionnaire and the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire. Subjects reported greater than usual sleepiness on the ESS and were on the upper end of the ISI, classifying for ‘extreme insomnia’.
After 7 weeks, patients undergoing sleep extension intervention reported a significantly lower negative emotion and higher positive emotion rating, with better emotional regulation than the control group. Their quality of sleep was also increased with lower ESS and ISI scores. There was no significant relationship between mood and duration of study, with significant improvements seen as early as the first week of intervention. These results suggest that extending sleep duration by as little as 90 minutes produces significant positive mood increases and better quality sleep in young adults reinforcing the importance of maintaining sufficient and consistent sleep and presents a simple solution to an epidemic issue.
To learn more about sleep extension treatment in young adults read the original article at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352721822000791?via%3Dihub.
Citation:
Christine E. Parsons, Katherine S. Young, Beneficial effects of sleep extension on daily emotion in short-sleeping young adults: An experience sampling study,
Sleep Health, Volume 8, Issue 5, 2022, Pages 505-513, ISSN 2352-7218, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2022.05.008. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352721822000791)