There is a connection between sleepless nights and an increasing sense of loneliness. The lack of sleep not only reduces our desire and ability to communicate, but also makes others avoid us, says neurobiologist Matthew Walker.
Why do lacking people feel more lonely compared to those who sleep enough? Researchers from the University of California in Berkeley decided to study the issue. They found that people who have not received full sleep are really less prone to interaction with others. They avoid close contacts in the same way as people with social anxiety.
But bad news does not end there. Nagging people emit excludes excludes that make them less attractive in the social sense for others. Even well -rested people feel lonely after a short meeting with an open person, which triggers the infection with the virus of social isolation.
“People are social creatures, but the lack of sleep turns us into social outcasts,” said the author of the study by Matthew Walker.
Sleepless nights, lonely brain
To evaluate the social consequences of lack of sleep, the authors of the study conducted a series of complex experiments using functional magnetic resonance tomography, standardized questionnaires to identify the degree of loneliness, simulate situations using videos and survey of online observers.
First, the researchers checked the social and neural reactions of 18 healthy young people in two conditions: after a full sleep and after a sleepless night. Participants watched videos in which people with a neutral expression on their faces were approaching them. When a person in the video was so close that the participants began to experience discomfort, they clicked the video stop button. Thus, scientists recorded how close the participants allowed another person.
The results of the experiment confirmed the hypothesis of scientists. In
an experiment conducted after a sleepless night, the participants stopped a “approaching” person at a much greater distance than in an experiment after a night of full sleep. The conclusions of scientists are also supported by the results of the functional magnetic resonance tomography of the brain of participants, which was carried out while viewing the rollers.
Researchers noted increased activity in the zone responsible for the perception of potential danger from another person, as well as a decrease in activity in the zone responsible for social interactions.
At the next stage of the study, the experiment participants were asked to get together and discuss various popular topics. More than 1000 online observers followed this discussion on the network. In the process of viewing, observers answered two questions about each participant: “How lonely he looks?”And” Would you like to join social interactions with it?”.
The results showed that the observers evaluated the open participants as more lonely and less socially attractive. To find out if the alienation caused by a lack of sleep, the researchers asked observers to evaluate their own level of loneliness after watching the video with the participants in the experiment. To their surprise, scientists discovered that observers began to feel more lonely and alienated after watching a short video with an open person.