We've long known that quality of sleep can depend on a variety of factors -- everything from the lighting in your room to the feel of your mattress. But, at least according to a new study, a lack of satisfaction with life also plays a role, especially for midlifers.
To investigate this correlation, researchers from Ohio Northern University gave nearly 4,000 adults ranging in age from 17 to 74 a six-item life satisfaction survey to measure their levels of contentment. They then used a subjective measure of minutes it takes to fall asleep to evaluate each participant's sleep quality. The result? Those who were satisfied with their lives were able to fall asleep faster than those who weren't.
"These findings support the idea that life satisfaction is interlinked with many measures of sleep and sleep quality, suggesting that improving one of these variables might result in improvement in the other," lead author Hayley O'Hara, a recent graduate of Ohio Northern University, said in a statement.
Prior studies have also linked a lack of sleep with anxiety. For example, one 2013 study from researchers the University of California, Berkeley, found that insufficient sleep plays a vital role in activating brain regions that contribute to excessive worrying.
When it comes to life satisfaction, a new study recently published by researchers at Chapman University revealed that greater life satisfaction in adults over the age of 50 is related to a reduced risk of mortality.
The new study was published recently in an online supplement of the journal Sleep.
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