Did You Know: Lack of Sleep Makes Us Less Generous?

 

Tired and sleepy all the time, the brain is low on processing a lot of things around you and so you may feel a bit of less helpful to the people around you.

Being indisposed to helping people or rather put it this way that you are just not ready to show generosity or kindness around especially when you suffer from lack of good sleep is a scientific phenomenon.

It is not just something that one can brush off as a common factor, but some researchers do believe that when an individual suffers from chronic sleep deprivation or disturbed sleep patterns then they are less likely to be generous.

Let us understand this in detail and what impact does sleep deprivation cause on the social front.

Study on less sleep or sleep deprivation

Scientists have been baffled over the new mystery of sleep deprivation and the ability of showing generosity, as per the University of California, Berkeley a team of scientists came out with some findings that suggest a lot about the co-relation between the two.

The impact of sleep deprivation on the ability or rather the willingness to be generous to others is significantly the basis of the research and speaks volumes about it. The negative impact of it all on the overall well-being of humans in general may be a sort of groundbreaking discovery.

Accessing how less sleep is associated with behaving selfishly is something that is one of the basis of the study conducted on 24 healthy volunteers, they went through FMRI wherein they slept for eight hours and another time when they pulled out an all-nighter without sleep.

As per the study following were the findings:

  • The areas of the brain that were responsible for emotions like empathy and understanding the wants of others were found to be less active when the participants were awake the whole night.

  • As per another study conducted online with 100 participants over the period of 3-4 nights wherein their sleep quality was measured, they came to a conclusion that people with poor night’s sleep were less willing to help people around them.

  • The study yet again highlighted the fact that simple acts of kindness like holding doors or holding open the elevator door for strangers was less likely to be reported by those who suffered from poor sleep patterns.

  • People with poor sleep were less willing to help others in needs and recognize the ability of compassion lesser as compared to those who slept well.
  • A third study conducted came out with a shocking result that involved daylight saving time. As soon as the switch was made it was found that there was a significant 10% drop in donations when the transition was made, making this one of the proof that when people were deprived an hour less of sleep they were less likely to be generous as compared to those regions where the switch was not made.

As per the study it is easy to conclude that when even a modest change was made involving an hour of sleep deprivation, it highly impacted the level of generosity of people experiencing it. Also Check - Subahplus Good Morning News

The functional reality of our brain is still complex to understand and requires deep analysis and a long study, but looking at these studies and researches that are ongoing suggest that there may be a significant co-relation of poor sleep and drop in generosity level in people.

Although, concrete evidence is yet to be established on it all but these studies do suggest a lot when it comes to how people behave when they lose on the ability to be fully functional especially after poor sleep the night before.