There are five types of sleep – here’s what it means for your health

Different people can experience one of five types of sleep, and these profiles point out that our closure affects our health.

Previous research has discovered a dream connection and cognition,, mental health and physical conditions, such as heart disease. But these studies often looked at a relationship with just one aspect of a dream, such as its duration or quality.

Take a more complete approach, Valeria Kebets At Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and her colleagues analyzed the connection between seven factors related to sleep – such as sleeping and use of sleeping aids – and 118 other measures, including cognition, use of substances and mental health. They have collected data, including cognitive tests, poll on sleeping and brain scan of 770 adults between the ages of 22 and 36 who lived in the United States -did not have a well -known health condition.

The researchers identified five different sleep profiles. It was first characterized by a general pattern of bad sleep – greater sleep disorders, reduced sleep satisfaction and longer time to fall asleep – and worse mental health, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as anger, fear and stress.

People’s brain scan in this group also showed a reduced connection between networks involved in self -reflected, such as temporoparietal network, and those responsible for attention and tasks, such as somatomotor and dorsal nets of attention. This could indicate disorders in brain ability to move between the inner and outside world, according to researchers. For example, people in this category can resolve their thoughts and feelings, not focus on their external environment.

The people in the second sleep profile also showed signs upstairs mental healthParticularly associated with negligence but not difficulty in sleeping. Instead, they had a decent dream on the whole. “We have interpreted it as sleep resistance,” Kebets says. “So worse mental health, which does not necessarily affect the dream.” People who match this profile have also lacked the brain -related patterns that are seen with the first group, which suggests that these patterns are specially related to sleep problems, not overall mental health.

In the meantime, the third profile showed the relationship between using sleeping aids – like prescription drugs or even only teas sold as helping sleep – and poorer memory And emotional recognition, which is the ability to recognize one’s emotional state through signs such as their expression or body speech. This could explain why people who match this profile had a reduced connection in the regions of the brain involved in sight, memory and emotion.

The fourth profile was different from getting less than 7 hours of sleep at night, amount recommended as a minimum. This was associated with worse accuracy and longer reaction times in cognitive tests that measure emotional processing, languages ​​and social skills. This profile was also associated with more aggressive behavior and increased brain connection. Past studies on the lack of sleep revealed A similar increase in connectionsuggesting that this indicates a long sleep.

The aggression also happened in the fifth profile, which was characterized by sleep disorders, such as waking several times in the night. These disorders are associated with worse language and working memory, as well as signs of low mental health, including anxiety Symptoms and abuse of substances.

These findings bring us closer to the understanding of the complex sleep and health relationship, Kebets says. “Sleep is so central to your sense of well-being and is associated with cognition, physical health, mental health, using substances-so many aspects of your functioning.”

But not all participants have neatly blended into one profile, Kebets says. Researchers also have not found evidence of causal relationships between sleep profiles and traits, just associations. No doubt will be a significant proportion of people who regularly experience quality sleep. In addition, the participants were mostly white, so the study may have missed the sleep profiles that exist among other ethnic preparations.