
Study: Sleep interruptions worse for mood than overall reduced amount of sleep - Amorymeltzer
http://www.psypost.org/2015/10/sleep-interruptions-worse-for-mood-than-overall-reduced-amount-of-sleep-study-finds-38920
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devonkim
As a person with two very talkative and aggressive Siamese cats, this rings a
bit too true as well. Before I got together with my wife (she chooses cats
over children) I had continuous sleep quite regularly in my life and now I can
hardly have a night anymore where I'm not woken at some ungodly hour of the
night by a hungry cat. Nowadays, I'm significantly more irritable and foggy
headed than I've been in my life (granted, it's not just the sleep
irregularity I'd guess but it's quite significant to casual observers like
friends it seems). When I go on vacation or business trips I'm in so much in
better control of my mood (week long trips are much more productive than a
month at home) I'd rather have two red eye flights in a week than stay at home
for a few days.

I liken having these cats to having perpetual toddlers - they're cute and
affectionate but they're incredibly nasty and can be exhausting to keep up.
Sometimes I wonder if having children would be aggregately in my less taxing.

~~~
bamie9l
I'm sure its the cats, but you might want to get a Carbon Monoxide detector
just in case:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_posti...](https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_postit_notes_left_in_apartment/cqvrdz6?context=3)

~~~
devonkim
I hardly ever get headaches and I have three CO detectors in the house that I
changed the batteries and tested when I moved in, but I didn't know about the
symptoms of CO poisoning in non-lethal doses.

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Lawtonfogle
My understanding is that REM sleep is the most important bit of sleep[1], and
ever sleep cycle (~1.5 hours) you get more REM sleep than the previous cycle.

While I haven't run the numbers in years, I remember comparing the total
amount of REM sleep between someone who slept 7.5 hours (5 cycles) straight
vs. someone who slept 9 hours, broken into half (3 cycles and 3 cycles) and
finding out that the 7.5 hours got more REM sleep overall.

Granted, this is a very rough calculation based on average numbers of a very
simplified explanation, but it would be an interesting issue to research.

[1]per our current understanding of the brain, which is quite lacking overall.

~~~
bigchewy
common misperception but not true [1]. All phases are important and REM comes
last so it's easy to say it's the most important, because it gets cut short
most easily.

yes, you are right about the increasing amount of REM in each cycle.

Overall, if you are relatively healthy, sleep shouild be straightforward -
black out your room, eliminate random noise like cats jumping on you and don't
turn on an alarm.

[1] Source: I ran a sleep medicine business for 5 years but don't have time to
officially source this

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sjbase
I always find it soothing when a study supports what seems empirically true
about the human body. So much research into the brain (especially where it
intersects with the rest of the body, e.g. sleep) seems paradoxical &
contradictory.

Unrelated: the ads at the bottom of this site really do a masterful job of
demolishing it's credibility... wow.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Wow, you weren't kidding.

Screenshot for those with ad-blocking software (mildly nsfw):
[http://i.imgur.com/Aq1lWNe.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Aq1lWNe.jpg)

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emanuer
I can anecdotally confirm and at the same time fail to confirm these findings.
Since recently I am awoken about 1—2 times per night. Yet, the noise is only
disturbing enough to awake me in between my sleep cycles. I have not noticed
any mood changes.

However after my son was born I definitely noticed a considerable drop in mood
due to being awoken randomly at night. (It was also roughly 1—2 times a night)

I wonder if the stage of the sleep cycle—one is experiencing—would influence
the mood changes.

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seanhandley
As a parent with a small baby I can anecdotally validate this.

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julianpye
As a parent with a small baby, I support your claim and feel your pain... I
also found out that the status/quality of the parents' relationship is totally
dependent on the baby's sleep.

~~~
biafra
As a parent of an older child, I can assure you: It will get better.

One tip I found especially helpful when trying to let my child sleep through
the night: Try not to be on their side, when they fall asleep. If they wake up
during the night and you're gone, they will more likely stay awake and call
for you. When you were not there when they fell asleep. They will more likely
sleep again without calling for you, when they wake up. A person usually wakes
up several times per night. It is important to make it as easy as possible to
fall asleep again when that happens.

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samwillis
As a parent with a 13 month old I can also confirm this for us.

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pcthrowaway
This is one of the more insane articles I've read.

'Delayed bedtime group' \- great, but were they delayed by one minute, one
hour, or 4 hours? How much sleep did the delayed bedtime group get? It seems
highly relevant to the article.

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cba9
If you clickthrough to the _Sleep_ link:
[http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstract.aspx?pid=30292](http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstract.aspx?pid=30292)
, you can download the fulltext through Sci-hub
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/sqq41vhyji9pjws/2015-finan.pdf](https://www.dropbox.com/s/sqq41vhyji9pjws/2015-finan.pdf)
/ [http://sci-
hub.org/downloads/cdac/10.0000@www.journalsleep.o...](http://sci-
hub.org/downloads/cdac/10.0000@www.journalsleep.org@generic-F17905026CA9.pdf)

The delayed amount was not a fixed amount but calibrated to another subject's
total sleep, so you can't say exactly how much each one was delayed by
overall:

"RSO During Nights 2–4 of RSO, subjects’ total sleep opportu- nity period was
restricted and yoked to the amount of total sleep time achieved by a matched
subject in the FA group. This was accomplished by delaying the RSO subject’s
bedtime and keeping a fixed wake time. For example, if an FA subject achieved
210 min of total sleep time on Night 2, the yoked RSO subject would be
provided a 210-min opportunity for undisturbed sleep (bedtime 03:30, wake time
07:00) on Night 2\. Subjects in the RSO condition were monitored polysomno-
graphically for an entire 8-h period."

