RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Not getting enough sleep? A new study by VCU researchers found how safe and accepted you feel in your community could impact quality rest and your overall health.
In the paper, “A Longitudinal Examination of Psychosocial Mechanisms Linking Discrimination with Objective and Subjective Sleep,” researchers examined sleep quality and the amount of daily discrimination people experienced over a 10-year period.
They found this level of anxiety led to shorter and intermittent sleep and stress.
The study found that people who frequently experienced discrimination often took longer to fall asleep, spent more time awake at night and had overall worse quality of sleep.
Dr. Natalie D. Dautovich, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology of VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences and the lead researcher on the study, explained these sleep troubles can caused because discrimination can cause loneliness, social distrust and anxiety, all of which lead to trouble drifting off at night.
“When we feel socially disconnected and anxious, it is much harder to physically and cognitively relax and get the deep, restorative sleep we need to function,” Dautovich said. “To sleep well, and deeply, we have to feel safe and secure. Experiencing discrimination can disrupt the bedrock of security needed to obtain healthy sleep.”
In turn, poor sleep can be linked to other health conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The study was published this month by Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation.
