Social isolation and loneliness are widespread issues that many of us are grappling with. According to an American Psychiatric Association poll, 30% of US adults felt lonely at least once a week, and 10% reported feeling lonely daily. Loneliness isn’t just a temporary annoyance. It can have long-term health complications like heart disease, obesity, depression and hypertension. Loneliness also may raise your risk of developing dementia. It’s not something to be ignored. In fact, the US Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health crisis in 2023.
Now, an unlikely solution for loneliness is emerging: getting better sleep. A recent study found that good sleep quality can lessen feelings of loneliness. These findings come from 2,300 participants who completed a validated sleep health questionnaire about their sleep and loneliness. The questionnaire was rated on the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness scale, which breaks out social and emotional loneliness levels. Social loneliness is defined as lacking a wide social network, while emotional loneliness is missing an intimate relationship. The benefits of sleep on emotional loneliness were the most pronounced among young people. However, researchers aren’t sure why yet. While these findings are interesting, we can’t take them at face value. Loneliness is tricky to study because it’s subjective. Still, there is an association between sleep and loneliness worth exploring. Let’s dig into the potential ways quality sleep could help decrease how lonely you feel. Also, see the five ways to calm your anxiety at night and how depression can influence how you sleep.
Loneliness isn’t just a feeling. It has tangible impacts on your brain. A study published in Nature Neuroscience used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to establish that loneliness triggers the same neural signal that a hungry person experiences when looking at food. We want companionship, even if not at the same rates. But it’s not as simple as deciding to be social. Loneliness has been found to make us less likely to trust other people and isolate us even further. Sleep deprivation also sabotages our attempts to be social at nearly every stage. Focusing on quality sleep may be the thing that gets us out of those negative feelings. We all have been there. When you don’t sleep well, you’re irritable, and everything feels just a little harder to deal with. That’s for a very good reason. Not getting enough sleep leaves you unprepared to handle stressful situations and makes it more difficult to regulate your emotions. Being sleep-deprived can make you more prone to angry outbursts and increased stress. Just like the body, the brain needs time to sleep. The amygdala is the emotional control center of the brain. When you’re sleep-deprived, this area becomes overstimulated, and you can’t interpret stimuli as you normally would, meaning you’re more likely to have a negative emotional reaction. This can contribute to higher symptoms of anxiety or depression, which studies have found to be connected to loneliness. Lonely people tend to pay more attention to social rejection and are more likely to mislabel expressions as negative. You’re more attuned to potential threats, even if there isn’t one. It’s self-preservation. Prioritizing sleep health gives your brain and body a chance to rest and recover. It may help interrupt the vicious cycle of hypervigilance and perceived isolation. Sleep deprivation makes you less interested in interacting with people. It’s understandable why. You’re tired, and as I mentioned earlier, you’re more likely to perceive normal situations poorly because your emotions are heightened. The good news is that according to a study from UC Berkeley, a single night of quality sleep made participants feel more outgoing. Not only are you more likely to want to interact with people when you’ve gotten good sleep, but you’ll also feel less lonely after those interactions.
- A solid night’s sleep can help alleviate feelings of loneliness
- Loneliness can have long-term health complications
- Loneliness is considered a public health crisis in the US