According to a research carried out by the University of Warwick, how people feel about their sleep has a better impact on their well-being than what sleep-tracking know-how signifies about their sleep high quality.
Across a two-week interval, over 100 individuals aged 18-22 years have been requested to maintain a each day sleep diary about the earlier night time’s sleep, together with what time they went to mattress, time they bought prepared to go to sleep, the period of time it took them to go to sleep, what time they awoke, what time they bought away from bed, and how happy they have been with their sleep usually.
Five occasions all through the next day, individuals have been requested to charge their constructive and detrimental feelings and how happy they have been with their life. Participants additionally wore an actigraph on their wrist which measures an individual’s motion, in the course of the research, to estimate their sleep patterns and relaxation cycles.
Researchers in contrast the actigraphy information with the individuals’ perceptions of their sleep and how they felt all through the next day. They needed to search out out how fluctuations from people’s standard sleep patterns and high quality are associated to their temper and life satisfaction the following day.
Lead writer Dr Anita Lenneis, from the University of Warwick’s Department of Psychology, stated: “Our results found that how young people evaluated their own sleep was consistently linked with how they felt about their well-being and life satisfaction.
“For example, when participants reported that they slept better than they normally did, they experienced more positive emotions and had a higher sense of life satisfaction the following day. However, the actigraphy-derived measure of sleep quality which is called sleep efficiency was not associated with next day’s well-being at all.
“This suggests there is a difference between actigraphy-measured sleep efficiency and people’s own perception of their sleep quality in how they link to people’s evaluations of their well-being.”
Professor Anu Realo, from the Department of Psychology on the University of Warwick added: “Our findings are consistent with our previous research that identified people’s self-reported health, and not their actual health conditions, as the main factor associated with their subjective well-being and especially with life satisfaction.
“It’s people’s perception of their sleep quality and not the actigraphy-based sleep efficiency which matters to their well-being.”
Overall, the research means that evaluating your sleep positively might contribute to a greater temper on the following day.
“Even though a sleep tracking device might say that you slept poorly last night, your own perception of your sleep quality may be quite positive. And if you think that you slept well, it may help better your mood the next day,” Dr Lenneis added.
“On the contrary, if a sleep tracker tells you that you slept well, but you did not experience the night as such, this information may help you to reassess how well you actually slept. A sleep tracker offers information about your sleep which is typically not accessible whilst being asleep. So, it may improve your subjective perception of last night’s sleep and thereby your overall next day’s well-being.”
