How a bad night’s sleep could actually make you feel better, scientists discover
PULLING an all-nighter can make you feel happy for days, a study shows.
Missing out on one night’s sleep rewires the brain to make you feel giddy, US researchers found.
While it increases how sexually aroused or aggressive people feel for a few hours, an antidepressant effect was seen for days.
This was because of an increase of the feel-good hormone dopamine, they said.
Professor Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, of Northwestern University, said: “We found that sleep loss induces a potent antidepressant effect and rewires the brain.
“This is an important reminder of how our casual activities, such as a sleepless night, can fundamentally alter the brain in as little as a few hours.”
The NHS recommends adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night.
Regularly missing out on that amount can increase the risk of a range of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes and dementia.
Professor Kozorovitskiy said: “Chronic sleep loss is well studied and its uniformly detrimental effects are widely documented.
“But brief sleep loss — like the equivalent of a student pulling an all-nighter before an exam — is less understood.”
The study, published in the journal Neuron, looked at the effect of missing out on a night’s sleep on mice.
They deprived the mice of shuteye and then tracked their behaviour and looked at their brains to see how it affected them.
The mice were more active and showed more sexual behaviours after the sleep deprivation, they found.
Their brains showed an increase in dopamine, which gives you feelings of pleasure, satisfaction and motivation.
The hormone also changed parts of the brain which made the feeling of happiness last several days.
They said the effect may have evolved to help fight off predators in nature.
But they warned against regularly pulling all-nighters as a means of boosting your own mood.
Professor Kozorovitskiy said: “The antidepressant effect is transient, and we know the importance of a good night’s sleep.
“I would say you are better off hitting the gym or going for a nice walk.
“This new knowledge is more important when it comes to matching a person with the right antidepressant.”