Science confirms: Stress harms sleep

It’s no secret that a stressful routine can lead to a bad night’s sleep. But this statement has always remained in the field of empiricism, that is, within their own experiences.

Now a scientific study from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) confirms this relationship. And more: it explains how stress affects the quality of rest.

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Scientists have found that nervousness and anxiety activate brain cells at the wrong time during the stages of sleep, causing poor quality of rest, and sometimes interruption of sleep itself.

the scientific explanation

The researchers monitored activity in the preoptic region of the hypothalamus during normal sleep.

They found that glutamatergic neurons (VGLUT2) are most active during waking hours and less active during sleep.

However, stress caused VGLUT2 levels to rise in the three stages that precede deep sleep.

This led to a minor awakening, meaning that a person wakes up and goes to sleep, and wakes up and goes to sleep.

You often don’t realize it, and don’t remember waking up several times during the night. However, when you wake up, you feel that you have not rested at all.

Activation of glutamatergic neurons woke people up precisely because it worked more during the day.

It is worth noting that the study does not provide a solution to the problem, but rather an explanation for poor sleep quality.

Stress and anxiety should be treated by specialists in fields such as medicine, psychology, and psychiatry.

You can access the report of this new research here.

Information from the portal New Atlas.

Sleep stages

• During the night, our sleep goes through four stages, repeatedly, in cycles, each with its own characteristics.
• In general, we have between four and six sleep cycles on a typical night.
• The stages of sleep are designated by the abbreviation REM (which in English means rapid eye movement or rapid eye movement).
• The first stage is called non-REM 1 and is characterized by the transition from wakefulness to light sleep. Lasts 1 to 5 minutes;
• Alertness is the term that scientists use to define the hours at which we are awake;
• The second stage of sleep is non-REM sleep 2, which is a light sleep that increases in depth and lasts from 10 to 60 minutes;
• The third stage is deep sleep, other than REM stage 3, and lasts only 20 to 40 minutes;
• Next, we enter the fourth stage, rapid eye movement (REM), when our eyes move under our eyelids. At this stage, our brain is working too much, with brain waves, breathing, and heartbeats close to those in the waking state, and other muscles are paralyzed.
• After the fourth stage, sleep returns to the first stage, and so on.