Category: Benefits Of Sleep

How Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Relationship

8/15/2025

How SLEEP DEPRIVATION Affects Your Relationship

What is it about you having a lousy night’s sleep that makes everyone else so awful?

It seems that way, doesn’t it? You have a night of broken, interrupted, just plain lousy sleep. The next day, people are driving like they’ve been lobotomized, humming and hawing about their Starbucks order in front of you and asking you the same stupid question at work that you’ve already answered half a dozen times.

Seriously, is the universe just messing with you? Is there a hidden camera somewhere and a group of sadistic YouTube pranksters sending these cretins into your path?

Maybe. I’m not saying that’s not a possibility, but a more likely explanation is that your lack of sleep is making it impossible for you to react rationally to frustrating situations.

Researchers from the University of Arizona released a study in 2006, which I discovered last week, showing that people deprived of sleep over a 55-hour period had...

An increased tendency to blame others for problems
Reduced willingness to alleviate a conflict situation by accepting blame
Increased aggression
Lower desire to behave in ways that facilitate effective social interaction

I know this might not seem like especially earth-shaking news, but it speaks to a broader point.

So, let’s imagine that you and your partner are the proud parents of a new baby. Your lives are undoubtedly blessed, but let’s not kid ourselves; a new baby is a mammoth responsibility, and they require their parents to make, on average, one million decisions a day. (I’m estimating there, but it’s for sure in the ballpark. Let’s say a million-ish.)

And for every decision that has to be made, you and your partner need to come to some sort of an agreement that it’s the right way to go.

What time should we put him to bed?
What do we do when he starts crying?
Are we going to breastfeed? Are we able to?

Those are all questions that need to be agreed upon and then reevaluated if things aren’t going smoothly. Those are just three of an infinite number of choices you’ll make in the first few weeks alone.

And every one of them presents an opportunity for disagreement.
Now, you and your partner may have a great method for resolving your disputes. You may have already agreed on a lot of these questions before you even got pregnant. Still, as any parent knows, all of those decisions are up for renewal the second things start going off the rails.

So here you are, faced with all of these decisions, all of which need to be approved by you and your partner; you’re frustrated because things aren’t going smoothly, to begin with, and to top it all off, your ability to recognize and respond to each other in a rational, civilized manner has been seriously compromised.

Two people are forced to debate the most critical decisions they’re likely to make in their lives, and they’re psychologically primed to blame one another, get angry, and be less likely to play fair or accept responsibility.
Nightmare, right?

On top of that, couples who don’t get enough sleep are less likely to show gratitude towards each other and significantly more likely to feel unappreciated, according to Amie Gordon, a doctorate candidate in social-personality psychology at UC Berkeley.

And as though that’s not enough, consider the fact that lack of sleep decreases libido, which means you won’t be having sex as often, if at all. Many of the parents I’ve worked with have told me they’ve stopped having sex altogether since one of them is sleeping on the couch or sleeping next to baby, and in those rare opportunities where they get the chance to fool around, they both say they’re too tired and just not in the mood.

Loads of couples get through this period in their lives with their partnership intact, and I’m not trying to suggest that sleep deprivation is going to be the end of your relationship. A baby who isn’t sleeping isn’t necessarily going to result in divorce, but I can say without reservation that it certainly won’t help.

Babies are amazing, right? I mean c’mon. What can possibly compare with those first few months when you and your partner stand over the crib together and look down on that precious new life that the two of you created together? It’s the most romantic experience I can envision, and it’s a period in your life that deserves to be cherished. That’s not so easy to do if you and your partner are constantly fighting against each other because neither of you is getting enough sleep.

There are so many reasons to make your little one’s sleep a priority when it comes to their well-being. Still, I’d ask you to take a selfish little detour for a moment and consider what it can mean for you, your partner and your relationship. After all, if there’s one gift your kids always appreciate, it’s seeing their parents happy, united, and in love.

So before you commit to couples therapy, before you move to separate bedrooms, before you even get into one more heated argument over which route to take to daycare, try taking a week to commit to getting your little one sleeping through the night and see how you feel once you’re all getting the rest you need.

The results, I promise you, are nothing short of amazing.

-Erin Neri, BA. Psychology, Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant, Infant Mental Health, Integrated Feeding Specialist

Kahn-Greene, E. T., Lipizzi, E. L., Conrad, A. K., Kamimori, G. H., & Killgore, W. (2006). Sleep deprivation adversely affects interpersonal responses to frustration. Personality and Individual Differences, 41(8),
1433-1443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.06.002

Gordon, A. M., & Chen, S. (2014). The Role of Sleep in Interpersonal Conflict: Do Sleepless Nights Mean Worse Fights? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(2), 168–175. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613488952

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The Benefits of Sleep

8/8/2025

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The Benefits of Sleep

Sleep has always been and will likely continue to be a mystery.
From an evolutionary standpoint, it seems like something that we should have abandoned a few hundred thousand years ago. The fact that we fall into a near unconscious state for a third of our day, every day, leaving us vulnerable to whatever horrifying dangers we faced in the early days of civilization, it makes me wonder how we ever made it this far as a species.

However, it just goes to show that whatever sleep does for us, it’s obviously vital to our health and well-being. If it weren’t, those individuals who needed less sleep would have risen to the top of the gene pool a long, long time ago, and those who thrived on a lot of sleep would have been, well, eaten probably. Man, I’m glad I was born in this day and age. Being eaten would suck.

As of yet, the scientific community hasn’t been able to tell us exactly why we sleep, but there is a consensus among researchers (and new mothers) that adequate sleep is beneficial in numerous ways.

We’re all familiar with the fact that we have a hard time focusing on
information when we’re running on too little sleep. Absorbing information is only half the battle, though.

Actually, if you really want to get technical, it’s only a third. Learning and memory are divided into three functions. Acquisition, consolidation, and recall. Put simply, you need to receive the info, then you need to stabilize the memory of it, and finally, you need to be able to access it when you’re
watching “Jeopardy!”

Acquisition and recall primarily occur while you’re awake. Consolidation, on the other hand, “takes place during sleep through the strengthening of the neural connections that form our memories. The overall evidence suggests that adequate sleep each day is essential for learning and memory.” (1)

So even if you manage to focus on what you’re learning and acquire the information, without sleep, that information won’t be properly stored in the brain. When called upon to access it, you’ll find yourself drawing a blank and making that face. You know the one your husband gets when you ask him to communicate his needs more often? That one.

Now, I’m a firm believer that learning and education should be a lifelong pursuit, but once we’re out of school, learning becomes substantially more optional. For your kids, though, learning is their primary responsibility for the first 18-20 years of their lives, so considering how much they need to retain, the importance of a healthy sleep schedule is hard to overstate.

We all know that when we don’t get enough sleep, we get short-tempered and irritable. A study from the University of Pennsylvania showed that subjects who experienced even partial sleep deprivation reported
feelings of stress, anger, sadness, and mental exhaustion. (2)

This isn’t exactly new information. We’re all aware that we get emotional in very negative ways when we’re running on too little sleep, but
why? Why shouldn’t it have similar effects to, say, a few glasses of wine? Why doesn’t sleep deprivation cause us to start telling people we love them or develop an overconfidence in our karaoke abilities?

Again, it’s a bit of a mystery, but some researchers have suggested that sleep deprivation stimulates activity in the amygdala. That’s the little almond-shaped part of the brain that’s responsible for feelings of, among other things, anger and fear.

These amped-up feelings can lead to an overall sense of stress and hostility toward others, which is probably part of the reason why you lost it at your co-worker when he asked you how your weekend was. The other reason is that he regularly uses finger guns and says
things like, “Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays,” so sleep deprivation isn’t the only villain here.

“Sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, as well as intellectual function, alertness and mood,” says Dr. Merrill Mitler, a sleep expert and neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health. “Sleep affects almost every tissue in our bodies,”

We can see how getting enough sleep is essential to learning and emotional well-being, but what about some more tangible benefits? Well, short of eating and breathing, you would be hard-pressed to find anything with more health benefits than getting enough sleep.

People who regularly get between 7-9 hours of sleep see significantly lower rates of obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, infections, depression, diabetes, inflammation, hypertension, heart disease, heart attacks, and heart failure. They also report higher satisfaction with their sex lives, better performance at work and take fewer sick days than people who
typically sleep less than 7 hours a night. (3)

So, there’s no question that sleep, while it remains mysterious, is definitely an essential part of a healthy and happy lifestyle. But that all changes when you have a baby, right?

I mean, you’ve brought a new life into this world, and you’re expected to sacrifice your sleep for a few years, maybe six or seven at the most, in order to respond to your baby’s needs, which, for some reason, they seem to have in spades in the middle of the night.

This is one of the most problematic myths about parenthood, and it needs to be put to rest.

Because here’s the thing: your baby needs sleep even more than you do. Those little bodies may look like they’re idle when they sleep, but there’s an absolute frenzy of work going on behind the scenes.
Growth hormones are being secreted to help baby gain weight and sprout up, cytokines are being produced to fight off infections and produce antibodies, and all kinds of miraculous, intricate systems are at work laying the foundation for your baby’s growth and development, and they’ll continue to do so through adolescence, provided they’re given the opportunity to do so.

Nature does the heavy lifting. All that’s required of your little one is to close their eyes and sleep.

This being my field of expertise, I see a LOT of people telling new parents that babies just don’t sleep well and that they should expect their little ones to be waking them up seven or eight times a night.

So to those people, I would like to say, you have absolutely NO idea what you’re talking about, OKAY? Your advice isn’t just wrong; it’s harmful. Telling people to accept their baby’s sleep issues as a part of the parenting experience is preventing them from addressing the problem, and that’s a serious concern for everybody in the family. Not because they’re selfish and enjoy sleeping late. It’s because they, and even more so, their kids, need adequate sleep for all of the reasons I’ve listed above.

And if your baby is waking up 7 or 8 times a night and crying until you come into the room and rock her back to sleep, that’s not motherhood as usual. That’s a baby who has trouble sleeping, and it’s interfering with their body’s natural development. It’s no different than an ear infection or jaundice. It’s a health issue, and it has a remedy, so anyone telling you to grin and bear it for the next six years is peddling horrible advice. I’m sure it’s not done maliciously, but it still needs to stop.

Accepting inadequate sleep in infancy leads to accepting it in adolescence, and eventually, you end up with grown adults who don’t give sleep the priority it requires, and all of those serious health issues follow along with it.

So, to every new mother out there, I implore you, don’t accept the idea of sleep as a luxury that you’re going to have to learn to live without for a few years.

If your baby’s not sleeping, address it. It’s not selfish; it’s not unrealistic; it’s necessary, and the benefits are plentiful.

- Erin Neri, BA. Psychology, Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant, Infant Mental Health, Integrated Feeding Specialist

Endnotes
(1) Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, retrieved from
healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory, December18, 2007
(2) Sleep. 1997 Apr 20 (4):267-77. Cumulative sleepiness, mood disturbance, and psychomotor vigilance performance decrements during a week of sleep restricted to 4-5 hours per night.
Dinges DF1, Pack F, Williams K, Gillen KA, Powell JW, Ott GE, Aptowicz C, Pack AI.
(3) National Sleep Foundation, 2008 Sleep in America Poll, Summary of Findings retrieved from sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/2008%20POLL%20SOF.PDF

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