Now that welcoming in the New Year is over, it is time to think again about sleep and the brain. Researchers in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry will report later this year, just out in prerelease online, that those who habitually sleep less have more difficulty disengaging from the negative (Volume 58, March 2018, Pages 114-122). Called repetitive negative thinking (RNT), this well known brain trend is often found associated with disruptions in sleep. Of interest to classroom teachers who work on teaching students the skills of positive self-talk and less mind-defeating negative imagery (see “Sleep to Learn Better,” Why Neuroscience Matters in the Classroom, p. 144-151), subjects short on sleep in the study spent more time dwelling on the negative. Mean sleep time for the selected subjects was just over six hours per night. Shorter habitual sleep duration was significantly related to slower disengaging from negative stimuli (r = – .33, p = .02). This remained true even when controlling for other mental health symptoms such as anxiety and depression (r = – .32, p = .02). The new study had a small sample size (52) and all adults, so interpret cautiously. But it is yet more evidence to encourage good sleeping habits for the brain.

–Kathleen Scalise

See link below for the online report already available:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005791617300629