You suffer from stress, you sleep badly and the next day you actually feel just as bad as the day before. Researchers have now discovered why bad sleepers have a hard time getting rid of their stress and fears.
According to sleep researcher Eus van Someren of the Netherlands Brain Institute, restless REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is the culprit, RTLnieuws.nl reports. During REM sleep you have intense dreams in which the past day is played out in combination with fantasies. Restful REM sleep helps to process negative experiences, but poor REM sleep does the opposite.
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For the study, 30 good and bad sleepers were examined. While they were in an MRI scanner, they heard a sound clip of themselves, on which they sang fake karaoke. The brain scans showed the shame they had after hearing the recordings because the amygdala, the siren of the brain, lit up strongly. The electrical activity of the brain was also measured so that it could be seen how well someone was sleeping.
The next day, the study participants were told the same excerpt. It turned out that in the participants who slept well, the brain sirens no longer lit up at all. With a good night's sleep they apparently had processed the bad experience. With the bad sleepers, the siren of the brain lit up strongly again.
