Anyone I have ever known has had the advice that we should never go to sleep angry. But did you ever wonder why?
A new study in the Journal of Social, Psychological, and Personality Science has shown that if you go to sleep angry or with an unresolved issue can massively impact your sleep quality.
Unresolved arguments cause your sleep to be lower quality and less restorative, which can massively impact on your health.
Scientists analyzed data from nearly 700 couples with specialist sleep monitoring devices and found that couples who took the time to resolve issues before going to sleep were able to fall asleep much faster.
This also helped them get the right amount of REM sleep to stay healthy and alert throughout the day.
Why you shouldn’t go to sleep angry and how to achieve better sleep, according to the study
Solving arguments before going to sleep removes the anxiety that comes with arguments and allows you to relax.
Anxiety produces adrenaline, and this is what makes it difficult to get to sleep because the adrenaline is preparing your body for something bad to happen.
Removing this anxiety and adrenaline makes us “feel cared for, understood, and validated” by our partners, allowing us to feel much safer and secure, and enabling us to relax and fall asleep much easier.
This effect has also been found in younger children, who go to sleep much more soundly when a parent or guardian is present, as they feel safer and more protected than they would if they were alone.
As well as providing you with a better night’s sleep, resolving an argument before going to sleep can also create a much deeper, stronger bond in your relationship.
Taking the time to listen to each other and resolve the argument makes both of you feel much more respected and helps you to get much closer as a couple.
Resolutions that create a compromise can also show to your partner that your relationship is much more important than winning the argument. This makes them feel more important to you and shows that you value your relationship more than anything else.
Resolving the argument before going to bed also gives you a new start the next day, so you can move on and have a much brighter day.
So when your mother told you to never fall asleep on an argument, she wasn’t just helping you to protect your relationship, she was also helping you to get the sleep that you need to maintain better health.
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