Abstract
Background/Objectives: Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is associated with memory consolidation and several health effects including stress response, mental health, and longevity. Recently, it has been shown that regularly co-sleeping couples have increased and stabilized REM sleep when co-sleeping as compared to sleeping individually. However, it remained unclear whether this is due to a specific effect of altering the usual sleeping environment by partner deprivation or due to a generalizable REM-sleep promoting effect of couple relationships. The present study aims to clarify this ambiguity.Methods: Married or never married individuals were taken from the Sleep Heart Health Study (n = 5,804) and matched regarding sociodemographic and health parameters. Matching was done using propensity score matching (1:1, nearest neighbor) and resulted in two groups of n = 69 each (married vs. never married). After confirmation of successful matching, samples were compared regarding REM sleep and other polysomnographic parameters (paired Students t-tests or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests).Results: Married individuals showed significantly higher levels of total and relative REM sleep as compared to never married individuals (all p's ≤ 0.003). Neither other sleep stages nor REM-sleep fragmentation differed between groups (all p's ≥ 0.29). Results regarding number of sleep cycles were ambiguous.Conclusion: This is the first between-subjects study to show that couple relationships are associated with increased REM sleep. This finding represents a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the previously hypothesized self-enhancing feedback loop of REM sleep and sociality as well as for REM-sleep promotion as a mechanism through which couple relationships prevent mental illness.
Highlights
Sleep research has found REM sleep to be a key factor in central cognitive and health-related functions such as memory consolidation [1], development of major public health challenges as insomnia or depression [2,3,4,5], stress response [6], and even longevity [7]
Despite the fact that about 50% of the adult population in western countries live in couple relationships and share a bed, the social sleep environment has only been marginally considered in this context
The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of being in a stable couple relationship on REM sleep
Summary
Sleep research has found REM sleep to be a key factor in central cognitive and health-related functions such as memory consolidation [1], development of major public health challenges as insomnia or depression [2,3,4,5], stress response [6], and even longevity [7]. A recent publication finds that regularly co-sleeping couples show increased and stabilized REM sleep when sleeping together as compared to sleeping apart [13]. Both study designs make it impossible to differentiate whether the observed effects are due to psychosocial stress induced by changing the habitual sleeping environment (i.e., by partner deprivation) or whether they are due to a general promoting effect of close social relationships on (REM) sleep. The latter could have far reaching implications and could represent an important mechanism through which partnerships impact sociability and (mental) health [13]. It has long been argued that sleep might mediate the health effects of couple relationships [15], yet mechanisms on the sleep stage level have remained a long-standing question
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