Less Sleep Could Make You More Optimistic, But Is That a Good Thing?

Last Friday on NPR’s Science Friday the topic of discussion was sleep including why skipping sleep may give us a more optimistic outlook on life. Guest Dr. Scott Heuttel from Duke University is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience. He’s been studying behavior in sleep-deprived people and in a recent study he monitored brain activation in people who were not able to sleep normally as they made a series of choices in an economic gambling game—one in which bets were placed to win or lose money. What he found was that people changed their preferences. Sleep deprived folks changed the way they approached their decisions choosing to weight the positive outcomes heavily and downplaying the negative outcomes.

Though sleep deprived people may be less attentive, that was not the source of their behavior change. Rather they narrowed down on a smaller set of possible outcomes and didn’t think as broadly about the decision problem.

Overlaying this with real life situations, it becomes more clear just how dangerous sleep deprivation can be for some people like doctors, truck drivers, folks operating equipment, and others.

Another guest on Science Friday was Dr. Charles Czeisler of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In answering one caller’s question he said, “Interruptions of sleep, in and of themselves, can adversely affect the restorative value of sleep, even if you get the same amount of sleep. And the loss of rapid eye movement sleep can adversely affect your ability to solve problems.”

Rapid eye movement actually helps people integrate their experiences from the day to help solve problems and understand how the world works. It’s something we’re not capable of doing during other stages of sleep or when we’re awake.

Dr. Huettle further pointed out that there are levels of deprivation and different people have different tolerances. With less sleep some people actually feel happier but that chronic sleep deprivation will increase the risk of depression, poor choices, accidents and other potentially dangerous situations.

Listen to full radio program.