Lack of sleep linked to loneliness

Lack of asleep is linked to depression, diabetes, heart problems and now loneliness as well as social isolation a new study has revealed.

Matthew Walker, a professor at UC Berkeley:

We humans are a social species. Yet sleep deprivation can turn us into social lepers.

For the study, researchers initiated experiments on 18 healthy adults using fMRI brain imaging, videotaped simulations, and online surveys.

What happened was they would take on social distance tasks. These are when videos are watched and a button is used to stop a person based on how close they were allowed to come.

Sleep deprived people were more likely to stop the approaching image by as much as 60% back.

The online part courted 1,000 people to take part in the study.

Without prior knowledge of their sleep patterns, participants were asked to rate their level of loneliness and those who were sleep deprived tended to be lonelier.

It can get even crazier. Just watching 30 seconds of a sleep-loss-induced alienation resulted in a feeling of loneliness.