Christiane BerndtPsychologische und physiologische Auswirkungen von gestörtem Schlaf bei jungen Eltern

About this book deutschenglish

Although sleep is essential to maintain homeostasis, sleep problems and disrupted sleep are widespread social phenomena in western industrial nations. Until now, there is no clear evidence to whether long-termed disrupted sleep is related to negative outcomes in otherwise healthy persons. The aim of the present work was thus to test if parents of a newborn constitute a good naturally occurring model of chronic disrupted sleep. For the very first time, the present work offers a broad and profound insight in sleep patterns of several hundred mothers and fathers by applying objective as well as subjective methods to measure sleep. Within the present work, parent`s sleep data in the course of pregnancy until the end of the first year of life of the newborn are contrasted to sleep data of childless non-pregnant controls. Sleep of (becoming) parents is altered during the whole considered period, that is, from pregnancy to late postpartum period. The averaged absolute magnitude of sleep disruptions in parents was muss less as expected. Thus, the label “chronic disrupted sleep” so does not seem to be justified for this group of persons. The present data further suggest that the human body is able to tolerate marginal alterations in sleep, so the same is valid for (becoming) parents. Otherwise, subjective perception of one`s own sleep broadly affects psychological well-being, irrespective of whether persons have actually slept poorly or not. Therefore, medical and psychological staff should attach great importance to self-reports of poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness – particularly with regard to client`s or patient`s perception of other areas of life rather than concerning potential detrimental physiological consequences. It can be assumed that all strategies to improve perception of subjective sleep, will simultaneously lead to less negatively distorted perception of other areas of life. On the basis of these data, the present work point to the conclusion that marginal disruptions of objectively measured sleep are not associated with extensive impairments in physiological functioning. In contrast, the feeling of having slept poorly has a strong negative impact on the perception of other areas of life.

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