Mind & behavior · 2021
Does staying awake all night change how couples feel when discussing a disagreement?
Yes. In a randomized experiment with 30 couples, those who stayed awake all night reported fewer positive feelings before and after a conflict discussion than couples who slept normally. They also had higher cortisol levels during the conflict. This is preliminary evidence from a single night without sleep, not evidence of lasting relationship changes.
Details
Poor sleep has been linked to relationship difficulties, but an association alone does not establish cause and effect. Researchers randomly assigned 30 couples to either stay awake for an entire night or sleep normally. After that night, the couples discussed a recurring disagreement for 15 minutes.
Compared with couples who slept normally, sleep-deprived couples reported fewer positive feelings before and after the discussion and had higher cortisol levels during the conflict. Researchers also measured satisfaction with the discussion, but the abstract does not report that result, so it does not establish that participants were less satisfied.
The experiment provides initial evidence that going without sleep can negatively affect couples' experience of conflict. However, this small, single-night study does not establish whether losing just some sleep has the same effects or whether relationship quality changes over time.
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