Good Sleep Garners Gratitude

A number of previous studies report that getting a good night of sleep is essential for physical and psychological well-being.  Amie Gordon, from the  University of California/Berkeley (California, USA), and colleagues explored how poor sleep affects people’s feelings of gratitude.  In the teams first study, people who experienced a poor night’s sleep were less grateful after listing five things in life for which they were appreciative than were people who had slept well the night before. The researchers adapted the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which measures sleep quality and number of hours slept, among other variables, to evaluate the previous night’s sleep. In the second study, participants recorded their sleep from the previous night for two weeks and their feelings of gratitude. The researchers found a decline in gratitude associated with poor sleep, and those participants reported feeling more selfish those days.  The final study looked at heterosexual couples and found that people tend to feel less grateful toward their romantic partners if either they or their partners generally sleep poorly. “In line with this finding, people reported feeling less appreciated by their partners if they or their partner tends to sleep poorly, suggesting that the lack of gratitude is transmitted to the partner,” observes the lead investigator. Submitting that their studies are the “first to show that everyday experiences of poor sleep are negatively associated with gratitude toward others,” the study authors report that: “Poor sleep is not just experienced in isolation. It influences our interactions with others, such as our ability to be grateful, a vital social emotion.”