Better Living Through Psychology

…you’re getting more sleep than you think you are. Allison Harvey and Nicole Tang of Oxford University showed in one experiment that people with primary insomnia underestimate the total amount of sleep they get and overestimate how long it takes them to fall asleep. This suggests that maybe it’s not so much the amount of sleep or the quality that matters, but how anxious you are about how much sleep you (incorrectly in all likelihood) think you’ve had. Sure enough in a later study, Harvey and colleague Christina Semler found that to be the case. A group of insomniac patients was given false feedback about their sleep. Across three nights they were given information each morning that the previous night’s sleep had been of better (Positive Feedback) or worse (Negative Feedback) quality and quantity than it actually was. The next day at midday and in the early evening subjects recorded in diaries to what extent they were troubled by thoughts such as ‘I didn’t get enough sleep last night’ and ‘I feel tired’, whether they adjusted their behaviours during the day (‘rearranged/cancelled my social plans’, ‘did less exercise today because I was feeling tired’), and how their functioning during the day was affected (productivity, concentration, etc.) On the days when they had received Negative Feedback, subjects had more negative thoughts about sleep, reported feeling more sleepy, felt they functioned worse and cut back on activities that called for energy.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Two things. Firstly, you’re probably getting more sleep than you think you are. Secondly, it may be that what’s making your day difficult is not that you’ve had a poor night’s sleep (subjects in the first study averaged 7.2 hours each of the three nights – where I live, in Parentland, that’s a sleep-in!) it’s that you keep telling yourself you’ve missed out on sleep and are therefore more alert to feelings of tiredness, instances of poor performance and so on.

HOW CAN I USE IT?

• Remind yourself that your estimate of how long and how well you slept is most often likely to be wrong. You slept better than you think you did.
• Even if you didn’t sleep well or long enough, you’re awake now. How does it help you to keep reminding yourself of something you missed out on and can’t regain? Try putting your attention on what you can do and what you can do well. Without suppressing your thoughts or feelings, see if you can notice moments of alertness, vigour and enjoyment in your day.
  What you pay attention to expands.
• Consult an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practitioner. They specialise in helping people to move forward in their lives in the face of thoughts and feelings that often hold people back. There’s also more information about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on my website.