Understanding the Mind
Losing Sleep
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
After 24 hours without sleep, participants in Marcus Harrington and colleagues’ study reported 50 percent more intrusions while trying to suppress unwanted thoughts. Closing the series based on Kim Armstrong’s ‘Ships at Sea: Exploring the Mysteries of Self and Consciousness,’ Doug connects sleep deprivation with the vicious cycle of intrusive memories, emotional distress, and further sleep problems that can burden people with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
This post is based on a section with the same title in an article titled Ships at Sea: Exploring the Mysteries of Self and Consciousness by Kim Armstrong in psychological science.org/observer/jan/feb22.
Unpleasant thoughts may arise for anyone who lets their mind wander or ruminates on the past, but intrusive unpleasant thoughts can come to dominate the lives of people with conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression wrote Marcus Harrington (University of York) and colleagues in a 2020 article in Clinical Psychological Science. Harrington’s research suggests that sleep deprivation is a common feature of many mental health conditions, may be one factor limiting these individuals’ ability to suppress unwanted thoughts.
“The onset of intrusive thought and affective dysfunction following bouts of poor sleep could create a vicious cycle whereby upsetting infusions and emotional distress exacerbate sleep problems…inhibiting the sleep needed to support recovery,” Harrington and colleagues wrote.
In the study, Harrington and colleagues observed the responses of 60 healthy adults, half of whom had been awake for at least 24 hours, to a series of negative images of wounded, accidents, and insects, as well as neutral images such as landscapes. Participants who hadn’t slept the previous night were found to report 50% more intrusions while attempting to suppress their thoughts.
However, all of the participants became better at suppressing their thoughts with each successive trial, Harrington and colleagues noted, although sleep-deprived participants were slower to do so—and after participants had successfully suppressed a negative image, they found it less aversive when they saw it again. This suggests that improvement is possible even under trying conditions.
“Sleep deprivation substantially increases people’s vulnerability to unwanted memories intruding into conscious awareness when they confront reminders,” Harrington and colleagues concluded. “Developing interventions that improve retrieval suppression in poor sleepers may be a promising avenue for averting the potentially pathogenic consequences of disordered control over distracting thoughts.”