Combertaldi Selina Ladina, Rasch Björn
Division of Cognitive Biopsychology and Methods, Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, FR, Switzerland.
Nat Sci Sleep. 2020 Nov 11;12:981-997. doi: 10.2147/NSS.S270376. eCollection 2020.
Sleep is regulated by homeostatic and circadian factors. In addition, psychological factors have a strong modulatory impact on our sleep, but the exact underlying mechanisms are still largely unknown. Here, we examined the role of intentions on subjective and objective sleep parameters. Young healthy sleepers were instructed to voluntarily either worsen or improve their sleep. We predicted that participants would be capable of worsening, but not improving, their sleep compared to a regular sleep condition. In addition, we predicted that the instruction to alter sleep would lead to a higher discrepancy between subjective and objective sleep variables.
Twenty-two healthy students participated in one adaptation and three experimental nights. Polysomnography and subjective sleep parameters were measured during all four nights. Participants were instructed to sleep regularly ("neutral"), better ("good") or worse ("bad") than normal, in a counterbalanced order.
The instruction to sleep "bad" increased objective sleep onset latency and the number of awakings during the night. The effects were stronger on subjective sleep variables, resulting in a higher sleep misperception in the "bad" condition as compared to the other two conditions. The instruction to sleep "good" did not improve sleep nor did it affect sleep misperception.
We conclude that intention is sufficient to impair (but not improve) subjective and objective sleep quality and to increase sleep misperception in healthy young sleepers. Our results have important implications for the understanding of the impact of psychological factors on our sleep.
睡眠受稳态和昼夜节律因素调节。此外，心理因素对我们的睡眠有很强的调节作用，但其确切的潜在机制仍 largely 未知。在此，我们研究了意图对主观和客观睡眠参数的作用。指导年轻健康的睡眠者自愿恶化或改善他们的睡眠。我们预测，与正常睡眠状态相比，参与者能够恶化但不能改善他们的睡眠。此外，我们预测改变睡眠的指令会导致主观和客观睡眠变量之间的差异更大。
22 名健康学生参加了一个适应期和三个实验夜晚。在所有四个夜晚都测量了多导睡眠图和主观睡眠参数。参与者被指导按照平衡顺序比正常情况睡得规律（“中性”）、更好（“良好”）或更差（“糟糕”）。
“糟糕”睡眠的指令增加了客观睡眠起始潜伏期和夜间觉醒次数。这些影响在主观睡眠变量上更强，导致与其他两种情况相比，“糟糕”情况下的睡眠误判更高。“良好”睡眠的指令既没有改善睡眠，也没有影响睡眠误判。
我们得出结论，意图足以损害（但不能改善）健康年轻睡眠者的主观和客观睡眠质量，并增加睡眠误判。我们的结果对理解心理因素对我们睡眠的影响具有重要意义。
