Task 6 Sleep and well-being

Question 1

How does sleep relate to emotions and emotional wellbeing

Answer 1

inadequate sleep (duration, continuity, or quality) is linked with greater negative and fewer positive emotions

Question 2

Impact of sleep on emotion regulation

Answer 2

1. Situation selection: insufficient sleep can undermine motivation to seek out and participate in rewarding activities
2. Situation modification: ability to self-monitor, appropriately interact with others, pick up nonverbal cues, and accurately identify emotions are diminished when sleep is disrupted –> less empathic, less productive, poor impulse control
3. Attentional deployment: sleep deprivation may cause distraction and efficacy to decreased and increase in vigilance to neg. or threat-related information
4. Cognitive change: sleep deprivation: may disrupt cognitive reappraisal
5. Response modulation: global emotional expressiveness is altered by sleep loss

Question 3

Effect of sleep on Emotional memory processing

Answer 3

• sleep loss impairs emotional memory consolidation
• encoding ability of emotional pictures was impaired after sleep deprivation

Question 4

Effect of sleep on emotional reactivity

Answer 4

• sleep loss is associated with mood changes, increased irritability and affective volatility –> neg. reactions are magnified and pos. reactions are subdued

Question 5

Which aspects of sleep affect emotion?

Answer 5

• REM sleep is unique by activation of emotion-related brain regions (amygdala, hippocampus) and inhibition of aminergic neurotransmitters (norepinephrine, serotonin)

Question 6

Theories on connection between REM sleep and emotional reactivity

Answer 6

1. REM sleep strengthens declarative component of sleep: activation of emotion-related brain structures = attenuation of affective tone through inhibition of aminergic neurotransmitters –> reactivation and neural integration of emotional events
2. REM sleep increases emotional reactivity: reinforces salience of emotional events

Question 7

Which neural mechanisms underlie the influence of sleep on emotionality and emotion regulation capacity

Answer 7

following sleep deprivation:

• decreased connectivity between mPFC and ACC with amygdala –> global problems with monitoring and regulatory control
• increased amygdala activity in sleep deprived individuals when viewing neg. stimuli
• sleep deprivation reduces recollection of neutral and pos. but not neg. stimuli –> decreased response in hippocampus