Psychology says people who go straight to sleep when life gets overwhelming may be doing more than avoiding their problems

Some people call their friends when life gets difficult. Others spend hours thinking about everything that went wrong. Then there are people who have a surprisingly simple response to almost every problem.

They go to sleep.

An argument with a partner? Sleep. A stressful day at work? Sleep. A decision that feels impossible? They would rather deal with it tomorrow. Their problems haven't disappeared when they wake up. Yet things sometimes feel easier to handle.


Psychology offers several explanations for the habit. Sleep plays an important role in emotional regulation. Studies have also shown that sleeping after learning can help the brain to come up with solutions that were not apparent initially.

Sleep and emotional regulation: why problems seem smaller in the morning

Psychologist and neuroscientist Matthew Walker has done a lot of research into the connection between sleep and emotional processing.

In a 2007 study, Walker and colleagues examined the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain’s response to emotional stimuli. Loss of sleep, researchers have found, is linked to stronger responses in the amygdala and to impaired connectivity with brain regions that regulate emotions.

The amygdala helps process emotionally significant information. The prefrontal cortex contributes to regulating responses. Poor sleep can throw those systems out of balance.

Imagine you receive a disturbing message late at night. The words might feel unbearable when you're already exhausted. After a good night's sleep, the message hasn't changed. Your ability to respond calmly might have.

Psychology says sleeping on a problem can improve insight

The expression "sleep on it" has scientific support. In 2004, researchers Ullrich Wagner, Steffen Gais and their colleagues published an experiment in Nature. Participants learned a numerical task containing a hidden rule. Some slept before returning to the task. Others remained awake.

More than twice as many participants discovered the hidden rule after sleeping compared with those who stayed awake. Sleep may help to reorganize recently acquired information, making previously unnoticed patterns easier to recognize, researchers said.

Imagine a person struggling with a difficult assignment at work. They've been thinking and thinking for hours, but still haven't found a solution. They stop working and go to bed. The next morning, an overlooked solution suddenly seems obvious.

Sleep doesn't guarantee such breakthroughs. The experiment nevertheless demonstrates why taking a problem to bed isn't necessarily wasted time.

Sleep may help the brain process difficult emotions

Another explanation involves emotional memory processing. Researchers Daniela Tempesta and colleagues reviewed evidence connecting sleep with emotional regulation. Their review, published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, found that sleep supports emotional processing.

Meanwhile, sleep deprivation can influence how people respond to emotional experiences. After sleep, participants who reported dreaming showed less emotional reactivity to previously viewed negative images.

The findings suggest that dreaming may contribute to emotional processing. Researchers did not establish that dreaming resolves real-life problems.

When sleeping becomes a way to avoid problems

Not every decision to sleep is about recovery. .Avoidance coping, psychologists call attempts to avoid stressful experiences instead of working through them.

Someone might sleep after an argument to regain composure. Another person might repeatedly retreat to bed to avoid having a necessary conversation. The difference matters. Rest can make difficult situations easier to approach. If you keep dodging it, the problem may never get resolved.

Research also indicates sleep is not necessarily reducing emotional responses. Some studies have found that sleep preserves the emotional intensity associated with negative memories.

Believing in the benefits of sleep is reasonable. Expecting sleep to solve every problem is another matter. For some people, the most useful part of sleeping on a problem is waking up with enough mental energy to finally address it.

FAQs

Why do some people sleep whenever they have problems?

Sleep can offer physical recovery and help regulate emotions. Some people use sleep to temporarily escape from stressful situations.

Is it psychologically healthy to sleep after a fight?

Once you take rest, it can help you to think about the argument in a calm manner. However, if you continue to leave problems unresolved, you it can create problems.