It turns out that sleeping in the same bed as a lover improves sleep



Previous studies have pointed out that ``sleeping in the same bed with a lover affects the quality of sleep and has a potential impact on mental health'', but in fact, couples sleeping together An experiment investigating the quality of sleep when sleeping revealed that ``a couple sleeping together improves the quality of sleep compared to sleeping alone''.

Frontiers | Bed-Sharing in Couples Is Associated With Increased and Stabilized REM Sleep and Sleep-Stage Synchronization |

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00583/full

Comprehensive Study Suggests Most Heterosexual Couples Get Better Sleep When Together
https://www.sciencealert.com/comprehensive-study-suggests-most-heterosexuals-get-better-sleep-with-a-partner

There have been studies on couple sleep so far, and in a paper published by the research team of the Loughborough University Sleep Research Institute in 1994, when a couple sleeps together, a woman is disturbed by a man. Although there are many, it was suggested that there may be a tendency to get higher quality sleep than sleeping alone.

And this time, the sleep quality of couples was investigated by a research team led by Henning Johannes Drews, a researcher at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Kiel, Christian Albrecht University . Drews et al.'s research team used 12 male and female couples with no children aged 18 to 29 as subjects. In addition, the subjects were healthy both physically and mentally, and had a habit of sleeping with their partners at least three times a week.



The experiment was conducted using 4 weekend days out of 2 weeks. The subjects spent a total of four nights in the sleep laboratory wearing

polysomnography , which measures brain waves, heart activity, motor status, and muscle tension during sleep. The subjects were also instructed to sleep alone for two of the four nights and to sleep with their partner for the other two nights. I was asked to answer a questionnaire.

As a result, there was no significant difference between sleeping alone and sleeping with a couple in terms of sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and sleep onset time. However, it was found that couples who slept together had a significantly higher proportion of REM sleep than those who slept alone.

REM sleep is a light sleep in which the body is asleep but the brain is awake. Humans alternate between REM sleep and non-REM sleep, a deep sleep in which both the body and brain are asleep. It is said that the rate of REM sleep decreases when the quality of sleep deteriorates. In other words, it can be said that the quality of sleep is higher when sleeping as a couple than when sleeping alone.



In addition, when a couple sleeps together, the sleep cycles of the two tend to be synchronized, especially in couples who were evaluated as having a ``deep love relationship'' from the questionnaire. It was also found that couples who slept together increased the total number of leg movements, on average, about 1.5 times more than those who slept alone.

From the above, the research team argued that ``sleeping as a couple improves the quality of sleep,'' and said that the results of this experiment again supported the 1994 study. Furthermore, ``REM sleep is associated with the activation of the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex, so it may have a positive impact on the person's sociality,'' the research team pointed out, increasing the proportion of REM sleep. We also showed that there is a possibility that there is a positive feedback that this improves sociality, which in turn improves the quality of sleep.

The physiological mechanism why sleeping together improves sleep quality is not clearly understood, but the research team said, ``The body temperature of the partner who sleeps together stabilizes the surrounding temperature and promotes REM sleep. I guess it will be done.' In fact,

experimental results showed in 2019 that the cycle of REM sleep is greatly affected by the ambient temperature . The research team also suggests that being with a partner may improve psychological stability and reduce stress levels, improving sleep quality.



However, the research team noted that the subjects were only 12 heterosexual couples, and that the study was conducted in a special environment called a sleep laboratory. I said that I could not cover the part such as what would happen if

in Science,   , Posted by log1i_yk