University of California researchers have found sleep deprived individuals to feel lonelier and less inclined to engage with others avoiding contact in similar manner as individuals with social anxiety; and the alienating vibe put off by the sleep deprived make them more socially unattractive to others. Well rested individuals feel lonely after brief encounters with the sleep deprived, potentially triggering viral contagion of social isolation in this study to show 2 way relationships between sleep loss and social isolation shedding new insight into a growing epidemic of global loneliness.
Scans of sleep deprived subjects as they viewed videos of strangers walking towards them showed strong social repulsion activity in their neural networks typically activated when humans feel personal space is being invaded; sleep loss blunted activity in brain regions that typically encourage social engagement.
Half of Americans in National survey reported feeling left out or lonely. Loneliness has been found to increase risk of mortality by more than 45% which is double of that of the mortality risk associated with obesity. Over the past few decades marked increased in loneliness and decreases in sleep duration have been observed.
A series of intricate experiments were conducted to gauge social effects of sleep deprivation using tools including fMRI brain imaging, video simulations, surveys, and standardized loneliness measures. Social and neural response of 18 healthy young subjects were tested after a typical night sleep and a sleepless night.
Subjects viewed video of others with neutral expressions walking towards them, as the people on video got too close subjects pushed a button to stop the video which recorded how close subjects allowed others to get. Sleep deprived subjects were observed to keep approaching people at a greater distance between 18-60% further back than when well rested.
Subject brains were scanned as viewing videos of approaching people, sleep deprived brains were found to have heightened activity in near space network neural circuits that perceive potential incoming human treats; theory of mind neural circuits that encourage social interaction was observed to be shut down when sleep deprived worsening the problem.
Upwards of 1,000 observers were recruited to view videotapes of the study subject discussing commonplace opinions and activities who were not aware subjects were sleep deprived and were asked to rate each subject based on how lonely the appeared and whether they would socially interact with them. Observers rated sleep deprived subject as lonelier and less socially desirable. After viewing sleep deprived subjects observers were asked to rate their own loneliness levels, otherwise healthy observers reported feeling alienated after viewing 60 second video clips of lonely people.
To investigate whether one good or bad night of sleep could influence sense of loneliness the following day each subject’s state of loneliness was tracked using standardized surveys asking question including: how often do you feel isolated; and do you feel as if you don’t have anyone to talk to? Amounts of sleep subjects got from one night to the next was found to accurately predict how lonely and unsociable subjects felt from one day to the next.
