1 . Poor Sleep and Loneliness: A Vicious Cycle?

The feeling of being lonely is the sense that you have less social contact with others than you want. It is not quite the same as the amount of social contact you have. Some people don’t engage that often with others, but they are perfectly fine with that, and so they don’t feel alone.     1     Being lonely is associated with poorer psychological health.

One area of research has focused specifically on the relationship between loneliness and sleep. There are several inter-related questions: Is feeling lonely related to the quality of people’s sleep? What aspects of sleep are related to loneliness? And does loneliness cause sleep problems, or do difficulties with sleeping lead to feelings of loneliness?     2    

The relationship between loneliness and sleep was explored in a paper by Melanie Hom and Caol Chu in the September 2020 issue of Clinical Psychological Science. They analyzed the data of previous studies relating sleep quality to feelings of loneliness.     3     This relationship is stronger for insomnia (失眠症) than for sleep complaints like nightmares. In addition, the more loneliness people express, the less effective they think their sleep is.

Although poor sleep and loneliness are closely related, it is hard to determine whether loneliness causes sleep difficulties or the reverse (相反).

    4     It is because you can look to see whether sleep difficulties at one time predict later feelings of loneliness or whether loneliness early on predicts later sleep difficulties. Interestingly, sleep problems predicted later loneliness and loneliness predicted later sleep difficulties. However, the connection between earlier sleep difficulties and later loneliness was generally stronger than that between earlier loneliness and later sleep difficulties. This pattern suggests that there may be a vicious cycle, though, in which poor sleep can increase feelings of loneliness, which can in turn increase sleep difficulties.

If you are someone who has trouble sleeping, be aware that poor sleep lowers your resilience (复原力) overall. Among other things, it may make it harder for you to appreciate the social contacts you have.     5     That added social engagement just might have a positive impact on your future sleep.