After a night of sleeplessness, there was reduced activity in the cognitive area of the brain associated with empathy and altruism.
How generous and willing to help others, one feels, also depends on how well one sleeps at night, say American scientists. A new study links altruism and generosity to the quantity and quality of sleep at both the individual and societal levels. In other words, if a society sleeps less and less at night, it gradually becomes more self-centered, according to the new research.
In developed countries more than half of people report not getting enough sleep during the week. Lack of sleep has been associated with, among other things, an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, hypertension and premature death in general. To this list should probably be added the lack of generosity, not only of a man but of an entire country.
Read here in English the scientific publication
The researchers of the University of California-Berkeley, led by neuroscientist Dr Ettie Ben Simon and the psychology professor Matthew Walkerdirector of the Center for Human Sleep Science and author of the international bestseller Why We Sleep, who published in the journal PLoS Biology, showed through three different experiments that people are more reluctant to lend a helping hand to others (from opening the elevator door for the other person to volunteer at a social program), when a night of bad and insufficient sleep has preceded.
The participants were also divided into two groups, one that got good sleep (eight hours) and one that experienced sleep deprivation. The brains of all subjects were studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and – after a night of sleeplessness – showed reduced activity in the cognitive area associated with empathy, altruism and the so-called “social brain” in general.
The trend of reduced generosity was also confirmed on a mass level when researchers found that after the standard annual time change in the US, the amounts of charitable and other giving of about three million people showed a decrease of about 10% when the time went forward one hour ( therefore there was less sleep).
As many societies have been experiencing an “epidemic” of insomnia for years, the study shows that this probably also has an impact on the degree of altruism that permeates them. “Helping others is a fundamental characteristic of humanity. New research shows that not only is sleep deprivation bad for a person’s health, it undermines social interactions between people, it undermines the very fabric of human society. How we function as a social species – and we are a social species – seems to depend significantly on how much sleep we get,” Walker said. “Even when people lose a single hour of sleep, there is a clear blow to our innate human kindness and motivation to help those in need,” he added.
A previous study by the same researchers found that sleep deprivation pushed people into greater social isolation, while also increasing feelings of loneliness. In fact, according to Walker, when insomniacs interact with others, they tend to spread their loneliness like a virus to those around them.
As he said, “looking at the big picture, we begin to see that lack of sleep results in a fairly anti-social and, in terms of helpfulness, anti-social person, something with multiple implications for how we live together as a social species. The realization that the amount and sleep quality affects an entire society, due to the weakening of altruistic behavior, may better illuminate the current state of our society.”
Ben Simon pointed out that “promoting sleep rather than guilting those who get enough sleep can in a very tangible way strengthen our everyday social bonds. It’s time for society to abandon the idea that sleep is unnecessary or a waste of time and, guilt-free, start to sleep as much as we need.”
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