Science News

Sleepless and selfish:?Lack of sleep makes us less generous

Study shows decreased desire to help others

?August 23, 2022, University of California - Berkeley

Lack of sleep is known to be associated with an increased risk of depression and overall mortality死亡率. However, these new discoveries show that a lack of sleep?makes us withdraw our desire and willingness to help other people.

What?problem?are?you?trying?to?solve?/?investigate?

What?did?you?discover?

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Sleep less ---> death?

????????---> won’t help others

In one portion of the new study, the scientists showed that charitable giving in the week after the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, when residents of most states "spring forward" and lose one hour of their day, dropped by 10% -- a decrease not seen in states that do not change their clocks or when states return to standard time in the fall.

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Evidence: ?charitable giving dropped by 10%

The study, led by UC Berkeley research scientist Ben Simon and Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology, adds to?a growing body of evidence demonstrating that inadequate sleep harms not only the mental and physical well-being?of an individual, but also the bonds between individuals.

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Finding:?harm-- mental, physical

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?????????bonds between individuals

"Over the past 20 years, we have discovered a very close?link between our sleep health and our mental?health.?A new work demonstrates that a lack of sleep not only damages the health of an individual, but degrades social interactions between individuals. How we operate as a social species -- and we are a social species -- seems profoundly dependent on how much sleep we are getting."

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Evidence:

social species= social interaction

damage ?????degrade social interactions

"We're starting to see more and more studies, including this one, where the effects of sleep loss don't just stop at the individual," said Ben Simon. "If you're not getting enough sleep, it doesn't just hurt your own well-being, it hurts the well-being of your entire social circle, including strangers."

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?????Hurt entire social circles, including strangers

(unbelievable? Fact?)

New idea!

Ben Simon, Walker and his colleagues will publish their results August 23 in the open access journal. Walker is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science,?at UC Berkeley.

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Should we trust him??

The new report describes three separate studies that assessed the impact of sleep loss on people's willingness to help others. In the first study, 24 healthy volunteers scan their brains after eight hours of sleep and after a night of no sleep. They found that areas of the brain that form the theory of mind network, which is engaged when people try to understand other people's wants and needs, were less active after a sleepless night.

"When we think about other people, this network engages and allows us to comprehend what other person's needs are: What are they thinking about? Are they in pain? Do they need help?" Ben Simon said. "However, these parts of the brain fail to respond when we are trying to interact with other people after not getting enough sleep."

We need more data, explanation, or evidence (hard science)

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24 volunteers

In a second study, they tracked more than 100 people online over three or four nights. During this time, the researchers measured the quality of their sleep -- how long they slept, how many times they woke up -- and then assessed their desire to help others, such as holding an elevator door open for someone else, volunteering or helping an injured stranger on the street.

"Here, we found that a decrease in the quality of someone's sleep from one night to the next predicted a significant decrease in the desire to help other people from one subsequent day to the next," Ben Simon said. "Those with poor sleep the night prior were the ones that reported being less willing and keen to help others the following day."

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The third part of the study?involved mining a database of 3 million?donations in the United States between 2001 and 2016. Did the number of donations change after the transition to Daylight Saving Time and the potential loss of an hour of sleep? They found a 10% drop in donations.??

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More data (3 million)

"Just the loss of one single hour of sleep opportunity linked to daylight saving time -- has a very measurable and very real impact on people's generosity and, therefore, how we function as a connected society," Walker said. "When people lose one hour of sleep, there's a clear hit on our human kindness and our motivation to help other people in need."

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An earlier study by Walker and Ben Simon showed that?sleep deprivation forced people to socially withdraw and become more socially isolated. A lack of sleep also increased their feelings of loneliness. Worse still, when those individuals?talk with other people, they spread their loneliness to those other individuals, almost like a virus, Walker said.

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"Looking at the big picture, we're starting to see that a lack of sleep results in a quite asocial and, from a helping perspective, anti-social individual, which has many consequences to how we live together as a social species," he said. A lack of sleep makes people less generous?and more socially withdrawn.

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"The realization that the quantity and quality of sleep affects an entire society?may provide insights into our societal state of affairs in the present day," Walker added.

This finding also offers a novel approach to improving these specific aspects of our society.

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"Promoting sleep, rather than shaming people for sleeping enough, could very help shape the social bonds?we all experience every day," Ben Simon said.

"Sleep, it turns out, is closely related to being kind and generous.?Sleep may be a wonderful reason for us to help?each other.

The best way to promote sleep is that ... ?could very help shape the social bonds?we all experience daily

"Sleep is essential for all aspects of our physical, mental and emotional lives," Ben Simon said. "When sleep is undervalued in society, not only do we get sleep-deprived doctors, nurses and students, but we also suffer from unkind interactions on a daily basis."

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In developed countries, more than half of all people report getting insufficient sleep during the work week.

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"It is time as a society to abandon the idea that sleep is unnecessary or a waste and, without feeling embarrassed, start getting the sleep that we need," she added. "It is the best form of kindness we can offer ourselves, as well as the people around us."

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