While many college students associate little sleep with irritability, there is evidence that sleep deprivation can cause feelings of euphoria and risky behavior, according to an ABC news article.
Scientists at University of California, Berkeley and the Harvard Medical School conducted a study, which was published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, in which they split a research group of 27 adults into two groups. They allowed the control group to have a regular night of sleep, but kept the second group up all night with no caffeine, alcohol or naptime, according to the article. In the morning, each person was shown a series of 100 images, roughly half were positive and the other half neutral.
The participants who had a regular night of sleep found about half the images to be positive and half neutral, however, the sleep deprived participants found many more of the images to be pleasurable.
However, Boston University’s psychology professor Jackie Liederman said that while there is some benefit to missing
one night of sleep, it is only a temporary fix. Liederman said that when you miss out on one night of sleep, the most important part you are missing is the rapid eye movement portion of sleep. REM is the deepest and most important part of sleep, where dreams and memory consolidation occurs.
The body also regulates its circadian rhythm during sleep, which is
similar to the body’s biological clock and deals with depression,
Liederman said.
Anti-depression drugs keep a person from entering REM sleep, which in
turn resets the body’s circadian rhythm, said Liederman.
This could be
the result of why people feel euphoric after not getting a full night
of sleep.
Liederman said this “cure” for depression is only temporary. If sleep
deprivation continues past one night then a person would become
irritable, grouchy and have a lowered immune system, which could lead
to sickness.
She also said the euphoric feeling from missing one night of sleep is
most likely to only occur with people who are already depressed, not
in normal people.
Many BU students experienced sleep deprivation during Saturday’s Dance
Marathon, during which participants were awake for 18 hours of
non-stop moving and dancing.
College of Communication freshman Bryan Sih found his mood after the
Dance Marathon to reflect the study’s findings.
“This week has not been good at all, and I’ve been grumpy for most of
it so it…[but] I felt happier than ever at the dance marathon,” Sih
said.
This result is in agreement with Liederman’s psychological explanation
that if a person is in a more depressed state then changing the normal
sleep cycle could help his mood.
Although Sih’s lack of sleep was also paired with the physical
requirement of dancing, which he said made his body sore and want to
shut down, he found that during the marathon he felt more positive.
However, Sih said he does realize the benefits to getting a good night sleep.
“I feel great when consistently getting sleep. I function better and
I’m more sociable and able to think clearly,” Sih said.
COM freshman Pip Stevens felt a similar euphoric feeling during her
experience with the Dance Marathon.
“Leaving [Dance Marathon] was a trip. Not only had we been dancing for
18 hours, but we hadn’t been able to go outside during the whole
marathon,” Stevens said.
“The sun was blinding and everything was
hilarious for some reason. I couldn’t take anything seriously—I was
completely delirious.”
She also said she felt the pendulum mood swings between feeling grumpy
and euphoric.
“I would get so tired and grumpy and dancing was the last thing I
wanted to do,” Stevens said. “Other times I would just go crazy on the
dance floor. Between about midnight and 9 a.m. my mood would oscillate
between these two extremes.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
I’m no longer certain the place you are getting your info, but great topic. I must spend a while learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for fantastic information I used to be looking for this information for my mission.