14 DAY TRIAL // Are you going through some stressful situation in your life? In this case, that can ruin your good night's sleep even 6 months after your problems are solved...This is the result of a five-year long research led by Dr. Jussi Vahtera, of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, Finland, made on a sample of 16,627 men and women with normal sleep and 2,572 with disturbed sleep. At the beginning of the research, each subject was assessed for anxiety, regarded as a general feeling of stressfulness connected with symptoms of hyperactivity.
The team focused on the connection between post-onset life events (like death or illness in the family, divorce, financial difficulty and violence) and sleep impairment during the five years monitoring. The data revealed a strong connection between proneness to anxiety in cases of negative life events and sleep impairment.
In the case of men vulnerable to anxiety, the chances of sleep impairment increased by 3.11 times following a serious negative life event within six months compared to other male subjects. For the subjects that were not prone to anxiety, the chances rose just by 1.13 times. In case of men and women predisposed to anxiety, in the interval of up to six months following a divorce, sleep impairment was 2.05 increased compared to control subjects, while those resistant to anxiety experienced an increase in sleep impairment of just 1.47.
"This five-year follow-up showed that exposure to severe stressful events can trigger sleep disturbances in people with undisturbed sleep before the event. Those liable to anxiety before the event seemed to be at a higher risk of post-event sleep disturbances compared with those not liable to anxiety. The strength of this study is a study design that allowed the timing of pre-event predisposing traits and the occurrence of specific stressful events precipitating the onset of sleep disturbances. Control for a large number of potential confounding factors suggest that the observed associations were not explained by socioeconomic position, obesity, high alcohol intake or chronic medical conditions at study entry," said Vahtera.
Doctors recommend adults to sleep 7-8 hours per night, while adolescents should sleep for 9 hours, school-aged children 10-11, and pre-school children 11-13.