Quality sleep may be the key to feeling less lonely. What you need to know

Social isolation and loneliness are widespread issues that many of us struggle with. According to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association, 30% of American adults felt lonely at least once a week, and 10% reported feeling lonely daily.

Loneliness is not just a temporary annoyance. It can long term health complications such as heart diseaseobesity, depression and hypertensionLoneliness can also increase your feelings of anxiety. risk of developing dementia. It’s not something to ignore. In fact, the US Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health crisis until 2023.

Now, an unlikely solution to loneliness has emerged: better sleep. A recent study found that good sleep quality can reduce feelings of loneliness.

These findings come from 2,300 participants who completed the course a validated sleep health questionnaire about their sleep and loneliness. The questionnaire was assessed on the The Young Gierveld Loneliness scale, which breaks down social and emotional loneliness levels. Social loneliness is defined as the lack of a broad social network, while emotional loneliness is the lack of an intimate relationship. The benefits of sleep on emotional loneliness were most pronounced among young people. However, researchers do not yet know why.

While these findings are interesting, we can’t simply accept them as fact. Loneliness is difficult to study because it’s subjective. Still, there is a connection between sleep and loneliness that’s worth investigating. Let’s take a look at the possible ways that quality sleep can help reduce how lonely you feel.

Also check out five ways to calm your anxiety at night and how depression can affect your sleep.

How can getting more sleep help you feel less lonely?

Loneliness isn’t just a feeling. It has tangible effects on your brain. A study published in Nature Neuroscience used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to determine that loneliness is the cause of the same neural signal that a hungry person experiences when looking at food. We want company, even if not to the same extent.

But it’s not as simple as deciding to be social. Loneliness turns out to be our less likely to trust other people and isolate us even further. Lack of sleep also sabotages our attempts to be social at almost every stage. Focusing on quality sleep may be the way to pull us out of those negative feelings.

Sleep helps you regulate your emotions better

We’ve all been there. When you don’t sleep well, you’re irritable and everything feels a little harder to deal with. And that’s for a very good reason. When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re unprepared for stressful situations and it becomes harder to regulate your emotions. Lack of sleep can make you more prone to outbursts of anger and increased stress.

Just like the body, the brain needs time to sleep. The amygdala is the emotional control center of the brain. When you are sleep deprived, this area becomes overstimulated and you are unable to interpret stimuli as you normally would, meaning you are more likely to have a negative emotional response. This can contribute to increased symptoms of anxiety or depression, which studies have shown connected with loneliness.

Loneliness also affects how people interpret social interactions. For example, lonely people pay more attention to social rejection and are more likely to mislabeling expressions as negative. You are more tailored to potential threatseven when it isn’t there. It’s self-preservation.

Prioritizing sleep health gives your brain and body a chance to rest and recover. It can help break the vicious cycle of hypervigilance and perceived isolation.

Sleeping can make you more interested in interacting with other people

Lack of sleep makes you less interested in interacting with people. That’s understandable. You’re tired and as I said earlier, you’re more likely to perceive normal situations poorly because your emotions are running high.

The good news is that according to a UC Berkeley studya single night of good sleep made participants feel more outgoing. Not only are you more likely to want to interact with people after a good night’s sleep, but you’ll also feel less lonely after those interactions.

Read more: 6 Strategies to Overcome Loneliness

Better sleep increases your self-confidence

Loneliness is not only potentially harmful to your health. It also makes you isolate yourself more often due to the perceived negativity of others. Add to that a lack of sleep, which has similar effects, and it’s hard to get out of that mindset.

A good night’s sleep reduces the feeling of anxiety and depression. It also increases self-confidence because you feel your best. Good sleep allows you to concentrate better, remember memories better and cope better with stress.

Too long, didn’t read?

Sleep deprivation and loneliness overlap in many ways. They can be emotionally and mentally taxing and have a significant impact on a person’s health. So it’s not surprising that research now suggests that prioritizing quality sleep is a potential solution to alleviating feelings of loneliness.

If you don’t know where to start with improving the quality of your sleep, start with the following: