There are five types of sleep – here’s what that means for your health

Different people may experience one of five types of sleep, and each of these profiles shows how closing our eyes affects our lives. health.

Previous studies have found a link between sleep and cognition, mental health and physical conditions such as heart disease. But these studies often looked at the relationship with only one aspect of sleep, such as sleep duration or quality.

To take a more holistic approach, Valeria Kebets from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and her colleagues analyzed the relationship between seven sleep-related factors, such as sleep satisfaction and sleeping pill use, and 118 other measures, including cognitive function, substance use and mental health. They collected data including cognitive tests, sleep studies and brain scans from 770 adults aged 22 to 36 who lived in the US and had no known medical conditions.

Based on this, the researchers identified five different sleep profiles. The first was characterized by an overall pattern of poor sleep—more sleep disturbances, decreased sleep satisfaction, and longer times to fall asleep—and worse mental health, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as anger, fear, and stress.

Brain scans of people in this group also showed decreased connectivity between networks involved in self-reflection, such as the temporoparietal network, and those involved in attention and tasks, such as the somatomotor and dorsal attention networks. According to the researchers, this may indicate an impairment in the brain's ability to switch between the internal and external worlds. For example, people in this category may reflect on their thoughts and feelings instead of focusing on the external environment.

People with the second sleep profile also showed signs of deterioration. mental healthparticularly associated with inattention but not sleep difficulties. Rather, they had decent sleep overall. “We interpreted this as sleep stability,” Kebetz says. “So mental health gets worse, which doesn’t necessarily impact sleep.” People fitting this profile also lacked the patterns of brain connectivity seen in the first group, suggesting that these patterns are specifically related to sleep problems rather than general mental health.

Meanwhile, the third profile showed a correlation between the use of sleep aids, such as prescription drugs or even just teas marketed as helping to sleep, and poorer populations. memory and emotional recognition, which is the ability to identify a person's emotional state based on cues such as facial expression or body language. This may explain why people who fit this profile have reduced connectivity in areas of the brain associated with vision, memory and emotion.

The fourth profile differed in that they slept less than 7 hours per night. recommended minimum amount. It was associated with worse accuracy and longer reaction times on cognitive tests measuring emotional processing, language and social skills. This profile was also associated with more aggressive behavior and stronger connections between brain networks. Previous sleep deprivation studies have found similar growth in connectivitysuggesting that this indicates lack of sleep.

Aggression was also observed in the fifth profile, which was characterized by sleep disturbances such as waking up several times during the night. These impairments have been associated with deterioration in language processing and working memory, as well as signs of deteriorating mental health, including anxiety symptoms and substance abuse.

“These results bring us closer to understanding the complex relationship between sleep and health,” Kebetz says. “Sleep is very important to your sense of well-being, and it is linked to cognitive performance, physical health, mental health, substance use—many aspects of your functioning.”

But not all participants fit into one profile, Kebets says. The researchers also found no evidence of cause-and-effect relationships between sleep profiles and sleep characteristics, only associations. There will undoubtedly also be a significant proportion of people who regularly get good quality sleep. Additionally, the participants were primarily white, so the study may have missed sleep profiles that exist among other ethnicities.