Better sleep primes your brain to be less fearful, new research shows.
While poor sleep has long been seen as a symptom of trauma and anxiety, the findings from Rutgers University show short and erratic shut-eye could also be a trigger for fear.
Through brain scans and sleep-monitoring exercises, the researchers found consistent quality sleep decreased activity in the brain regions involved in fear learning.
Experts say this evidence shows soldiers’ sleep patterns should be monitored before entering war zones, to decrease their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder.
While poor sleep has long been seen as a symptom of trauma and anxiety, the findings from Rutgers University show short and erratic shut-eye could also be a trigger for fear (file image)
The aim was to monitor how much REM sleep each participant got in the study, then to monitor how this affected their fear learning in their brain.
REM sleep (rapid-eye movement sleep) is the phase in which muscles are the least active. It accounts for around 25 percent of total sleep, but is the period in which experts believe we get the most rest.
A lack of REM sleep has been connected to many kind of health woes, including an increased propensity for anxiety.
Lead researchers Itamar Lerner and Shira Lupkin wanted to see how this corresponds with PTSD.
While many experience PTSD after a traumatic event, the clinical disorder does not affect everybody.
Now, as PTSD diagnoses become more frequent – and the rate of PTSD-related suicides and killings rise – scientists are scrambling to identify any distinguishes factors that make somebody more likely to develop the condition.
The study involved 17 students, five of whom were female.
They had the students monitor their sleep at home for a week using a headband that measures brain waves.
The next week, they scanned their brains, analyzing how various parts of their brain reacted when they witnessed something shocking.
Students who spent more time in REM sleep had a less intense connection between, their amygdala, hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex during fear learning.
They concluded: ‘Ultimately, our results may suggest that baseline REM sleep could serve as a non-invasive biomarker for resilience, or susceptibility, to trauma.’