Studies // Cited work
The effect of sleep deprivation and restriction on mood, emotion, and emotion regulation: Three meta-analyses in one
Tomaso, C. C., Johnson, A. B., & Nelson, T. D. (2021). The effect of sleep deprivation and restriction on mood, emotion, and emotion regulation: Three meta-analyses in one.
Level A Meta-analysis doi:10.1093/sleep/zsaa289
What this study supports
Supports the claims that sleep loss increased negative mood (g = 0.45), decreased positive mood (g = -0.94) and had a small negative effect on adaptive emotion regulation (g = -0.32), with no significant effect on maladaptive regulation. The regulation findings came from youth samples only.
- Who was studied
- 241 effect sizes from 64 studies of sleep restriction or deprivation from early childhood to late adulthood.
- Design
- Meta-analysis
- Level of evidence
- Syntheses of controlled studies: meta-analyses and systematic reviews of experiments and trials.
Claims that rest on it
Each claim states what the site asserts, at what strength, and with what caveat.
Experimental sleep loss in healthy people reduces positive affect and increases anxiety symptoms, while effects on negative affect, emotional reactivity and depressive symptoms are mixed and depend on the type of sleep loss.
- Scope
- Total sleep deprivation, partial restriction and fragmentation over short periods in healthy participants aged 7 to 79.
- Caveat
- Short laboratory manipulations; the pattern for negative affect and reactivity is not uniform, and chronic real-life sleep problems may differ.
Last reviewed · Review due · sleep-loss-reduces-positive-affect
In a meta-analysis, sleep restriction had a small negative effect on adaptive emotion regulation (g = -0.32) and no significant effect on maladaptive emotion regulation, in studies conducted only with young people.
- Scope
- Meta-analysed experiments on sleep loss and emotion regulation; all adaptive-regulation studies used youth samples.
- Caveat
- The pooled regulation effect rests on youth samples only; effects in adults are not established by this source.
Last reviewed · Review due · sleep-restriction-lowers-adaptive-regulation