Study Identifies How Sleep Helps Our Brain to Process Emotions and Regulate Mental Health

The researchers couldn't figure out how intense emotions are reactivated during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Study Identifies How Sleep Helps Our Brain to Process Emotions and Regulate Mental Health

Photo Credit: Pexels/ Andrea Piacquadio

This study highlights the importance of sleep for mental health

Highlights
  • brain triages emotions during dreaming to store positive ones
  • Study paves way for treatment of wide range of psychological disturbances
  • Excessively negative emotions can lead to pathological states like PTSD
Advertisement

Everyone needs a good night's sleep, more so in the rapidly changing world where lifestyle changes are taking a toll on physical and mental health. It is well documented how an adequate amount of sleep can help us feel better and perform our daily chores efficiently. It makes us feel full of energy. But why does this happen? A new study may have an answer for this. It says that the brain triages emotions during dreaming to store the positive emotions and dampen the negative ones. More importantly, this study highlights the importance of sleep for mental health and paves way for new therapeutic pathways for a wide range of psychological disturbances.

With their study, the researchers at the University of Bern and Bern University Hospital have tried to understand how the brain places an order of urgency or treatment of emotions during dreaming. However, the researchers couldn't figure out how intense emotions are reactivated during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. “Our goal was to understand the underlying mechanism and the functions of such a surprising phenomenon,” Professor Antoine Adamantidis, who headed the study, said in a statement.

According to the researchers, processing emotions is critical for the survival of animals. Excessively negative emotions can lead to pathological states like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) in humans. Citing data, they added that roughly 15 percent of the population in Europe is affected by persistent anxiety and severe mental illness.

This study provides an insights into how the brain helps to reinforce positive emotions and weaken strongly negative or traumatic emotions during REM sleep. Their findings, published in the journal Science, can open new ways to understand and address mental health issues, including PTSD. “We hope that our findings will not only be of interest to the patients, but also to the broad public,” added Prof Adamantidis.

 


Are affordable smartwatches worth it? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.
Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Further reading: brain, sleep, REM, mental health, dreams, emotions
Many of Top 100,000 Websites Found to Be Collecting Data Typed by Users Before Hitting 'Submit' Button
Cryptocurrencies: Why They’ve Crashed and What It Could Mean for Their Future
Share on Facebook Gadgets360 Twitter Share Tweet Snapchat Share Reddit Comment google-newsGoogle News
 
 

Advertisement

Follow Us

Advertisement

© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Trending Products »
Latest Tech News »