New Research Suggests That Getting Better Sleep May Help Lower Levels Of Loneliness, Especially Among Young Adults
It’s well known that a good night’s sleep offers a myriad of benefits, from sharpened cognitive skills like attention, memory, and learning to even the support of healthy brain function and muscle repair.
However, a new study recently revealed yet another upside to getting a solid slumber each night – it may help decrease loneliness.
The research, which will be presented at the SLEEP 2024 annual meeting, discovered a connection between quality sleep and reduced loneliness. The benefits were also most significant among younger adults.
In May 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General called loneliness a public health crisis. Experts have even equated the health risks associated with loneliness to the lethal effects of smoking up to 15 cigarettes each day.
Plus, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of U.S. adults still reported experiencing some degree of loneliness, lack of connection, and isolation.
“Loneliness is an urgent public health crisis, and there is a pressing need for providers to better understand and treat it,” explained Joseph Dzierzewski, the study’s principal investigator.
For this study, the research team gathered 2,297 adults. The group had an average age of 44 years old, and each participant completed an online sleep health questionnaire and assessed their loneliness levels.
The results revealed that quality sleep can actually enhance feelings of social connectedness.
More specifically, the findings suggest that better sleep health is associated with reduced social, emotional, and overall loneliness. Additionally, these effects were observed across all age groups.
LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“Our results highlight the important role that sleep plays in understanding loneliness across the adult lifespan. Perhaps efforts to improve sleep health could have a beneficial effect on loneliness, especially for young people,” Dzierzewski noted.
Right now, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend that adults get seven hours of sleep each night for optimal productivity, health, and daytime alertness.
Now, the researchers did not delve into why younger adults seemed to benefit more significantly from sleep’s impact on reducing loneliness compared to other age groups. But, they agreed that this interesting finding calls for further study.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in Oxford Academic’s SLEEP, visit the link here.
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