Sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across individuals, groups, and large-scale societies

Ben Simon E, Vallat R, Rossi A, Walker MP (2022) 

PLoS Biol 20(8): e3001733.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001733

Abstract

Humans help each other. This fundamental feature of homo sapiens has been one of the most powerful forces sculpting the advent of modern civilizations. But what determines whether humans choose to help one another? Across 3 replicating studies, here, we demonstrate that sleep loss represents one previously unrecognized factor dictating whether humans choose to help each other, observed at 3 different scales (within individuals, across individuals, and across societies). First, at an individual level, 1 night of sleep loss triggers the withdrawal of help from one individual to another. Moreover, fMRI findings revealed that the withdrawal of human helping is associated with deactivation of key nodes within the social cognition brain network that facilitates prosociality. Second, at a group level, ecological night-to-night reductions in sleep across several nights predict corresponding next-day reductions in the choice to help others during day-to-day interactions. Third, at a large-scale national level, we demonstrate that 1 h of lost sleep opportunity, inflicted by the transition to Daylight Saving Time, reduces real-world altruistic helping through the act of donation giving, established through the analysis of over 3 million charitable donations. Therefore, inadequate sleep represents a significant influential force determining whether humans choose to help one another, observable across micro- and macroscopic levels of civilized interaction. The implications of this effect may be non-trivial when considering the essentiality of human helping in the maintenance of cooperative, civil society, combined with the reported decline in sufficient sleep in many first-world nations.

From the Discussion section

Taken together, findings across all 3 studies establish insufficient sleep (both quantity and quality) as a degrading force influencing whether or not humans wish to help each other, and do indeed, choose to help each other (through real-world altruistic acts), observable at 3 different societal scales: within individuals, across individuals, and at a nationwide level.

Study 1 established not only the causal impact of sleep loss on the basic desire to help another human being, but further characterised the central underlying brain mechanism associated with this altered phenotype of diminished helping. Specifically, sleep loss significantly and selectively reduced activity throughout key nodes of the social cognition brain network (see Fig 1B) normally associated with prosociality, including perspective taking of others’ mental state, their emotions, and their personal needs. Therefore, impairment of this neural system caused by a lack of sleep represents one novel pathway explaining the associated withdrawal of helping desire and the decisional act to offer such help.

The research is here.

Sleep Deprivation and Advice Taking

Jan Alexander Häusser, Johannes Leder, Charlene Ketturat, Martin Dresler & Nadira Sophie Faber
Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 24386 (2016)
doi:10.1038/srep24386

Abstract

Judgements and decisions in many political, economic or medical contexts are often made while sleep deprived. Furthermore, in such contexts individuals are required to integrate information provided by – more or less qualified – advisors. We asked if sleep deprivation affects advice taking. We conducted a 2 (sleep deprivation: yes vs. no) ×2 (competency of advisor: medium vs. high) experimental study to examine the effects of sleep deprivation on advice taking in an estimation task. We compared participants with one night of total sleep deprivation to participants with a night of regular sleep. Competency of advisor was manipulated within subjects. We found that sleep deprived participants show increased advice taking. An interaction of condition and competency of advisor and further post-hoc analyses revealed that this effect was more pronounced for the medium competency advisor compared to the high competency advisor. Furthermore, sleep deprived participants benefited more from an advisor of high competency in terms of stronger improvement in judgmental accuracy than well-rested participants.

The article is here.

Relationship Between Sleep Duration And Suicidal Thoughts In People With Insomnia

Medical News Today
Originally published May 17, 2013

Results of a new study show that every one-hour increase in sleep duration was associated with a 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of moderate or high suicide risk, in comparison with low risk. Data were adjusted for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education and age of onset of sleep difficulties.

"We were surprised by the strength of the association between sleep duration and suicide risk," said primary author Linden Oliver, MA, clinical research coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program in Philadelphia, Pa. "A 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of moderate or high suicide risk with a one-hour increase in sleep is interesting given the small sample size."

The research abstract was published recently in an online supplement of the journal SLEEP, and Oliver will present the findings Tuesday, June 4, in Baltimore, Md., at SLEEP 2013, the 27th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

The entire story is here.

Burnout, Dissatisfaction Seem Rampant Among Medical Residents

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

Latest Mental Health News

MedicineNet.com

TUESDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- The medical resident of today -- possibly your doctor in the future -- is exhausted, emotionally spent and likely stressed out about debt, a new study indicates.

"About 50% of our trainees are burned out," said study leader Dr. Colin P. West, an associate professor of medicine and biostatistics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Higher levels of stress translated into lower scores on tests that gauge medical knowledge and more emotional detachment, among other fallout.

The study is published in the Sept. 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a themed issue devoted to doctors' training.

West and his team evaluated results of surveys and exams given to nearly 17,000 internal medicine residents, who were said to represent about 75% of all U.S. internal medicine residents in the 2008-9 academic year. The participants included 7,743 graduates of U.S. medical schools. They were asked about quality of life, work-life balance, burnout and their educational debt.

Among the findings:

• Nearly 15% said their overall quality of life was "somewhat bad" or "as bad as it can be."
• One-third said they were somewhat or very dissatisfied with work-life balance.
• Forty-six percent said they were feeling emotionally exhausted at least once a week.
• Nearly 29% said they felt detached or unable to feel emotion at least once a week.
• More than half said they had at least one symptom of burnout.

 The more educational debt the residents had incurred, the greater their emotional distress, the researchers found. Those with more than $200,000 of debt had a 59% higher chance of reporting emotional exhaustion, 72% greater likelihood of suffering burnout, and an 80% higher chance of feeling depersonalization.

Perhaps more alarming is the finding that greater stress was associated with lower test scores, and those students who were academically hurt by stress never caught up with their peers.

West said he can't explain why those more laden with debt are more stressed out. One possibility is that they may be more prone to stress to begin with.

Medical residents' stress has made news for years, and efforts are under way to improve their working conditions. However, West said, "to our knowledge, this is the first national study of residents' distress issues. And it's also the first national study to connect those issues to other important outcomes like medical knowledge."

As for solutions, he said "we have not yet identified the best ways to reduce burnout and promote well-being for residents, or for physicians in general."

He hopes that this new data, now gathered nationally, will help lead to solutions.

The findings come as no surprise to Dr. Peter Cronholm, an assistant professor of family medicine and community health and also a senior fellow at the Center for Public Health Initiatives of the University of Pennsylvania.

Cronholm, who published a study on resident burnout in 2008, said the residents of today may put more emphasis on work-life balance than previous generations.

One disturbing finding, he said, is that a stressed-out resident has less empathy over time. Already, close to one-third said they felt detached emotionally at least weekly.

However, he said, it's difficult to balance obligations to patients and get sufficient sleep and personal time. "Those two things sort of continue to compete with each other," he said.

Solutions aren't available yet, as "the problem is not yet totally understood. This is part of the conversation about health care reform," he said.