A GOOD SLEEP HELPS SOCIAL SKILLS

A LACK of sleep can turn you into a grumpy ‘social leper’ who shuns human contact, a study suggests.

Sleep deprivation activates brain areas that make you find other people threatening, a study found. It also dampens down brain regions that promote being sociable.

A study by the University of California, Berkeley, enrolled 18 healthy adults to a sleep laboratory and prevented them from getting any sleep on one night.

Psychological tests showed the sleep deprived wanted to avoid close contact. When asked how they felt afterwards, participants rated themselves ‘as feeling significantly more lonely’. Not only did the volunteers feel more unsociable, they made other people looking at them feel more lonely and ‘socially unattractive’.

Study author Matthew Walker said: ‘We humans are a social species. Yet sleep deprivation can turn us into social lepers. The less sleep you get, the less you want to socially interact. ‘In turn, other people perceive you as more socially repulsive, further increasing the grave social isolation impact of sleep loss. That may be a significant contributing factor to the public health crisis that is loneliness.’

Humans are often found to want to help, or ‘nurture’, other vulnerable members of their group. But the authors say this response does not kick in when tired.

Volunteers viewed video clips of individuals walking towards them, stopping the tape when they got too close. Sleep-deprived participants kept the approaching person at a significantly greater distance away — between 18 and 60% farther back — than when they had been well rested. Researchers found heightened activity in a circuit activated when the brain perceives human threats.

In contrast, another circuit that encourages social interaction was shut down by sleep deprivation. Dr Walker said: ‘On a positive note, just one night of good sleep makes you feel more outgoing.’