The quality of your sleep appears to shape your political behavior

A steady night of restful sleep is associated with a greater likelihood of showing up at the polls to vote, while tossing and turning is linked to a higher chance of participating in non-traditional political acts like boycotts and protests. These varied political behaviors are tied to our biological need for restorative rest. The research on sleep and civic engagement was recently published in the journal Political Psychology.

Voting and participating in civic life require substantial reserves of time and mental energy. For decades, political scientists used a resource model to understand why certain groups of people are more likely to participate in their government. This model traditionally focused on material resources. Individuals with higher incomes, advanced educational degrees, and flexible job schedules tend to have more capacity to stay informed and show up at the polling booth.

Recently, scholars began looking at human biology as another fundamental resource for political participation. Maintaining a healthy physical and mental state requires ongoing biological maintenance. Getting adequate rest builds cognitive capacity, regulates mood, and preserves physical health. Unlike money or educational certificates, rest is a biological resource that individuals cannot accumulate and store away for future use.

Previous studies in this emerging subfield demonstrated that the sheer amount of time a person spends asleep relates to their likelihood of voting. Researchers also found links between a person’s chronotype, whether they naturally favor early mornings or late nights, and their eventual political behavior.

However, clocking eight hours in bed does not guarantee a person wakes up feeling refreshed. Sleep quality is a distinct measurement from sleep duration. It encompasses how easily someone falls asleep, how often they wake up during the night, and whether they feel restored in the morning. An individual might spend nine hours in bed but still suffer from a high degree of restlessness.

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Lead author Fatih Erol, a political scientist at the University of Idaho, collaborated with researchers Nathan K. Micatka and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz to see if how well a person sleeps informs how they engage with their government. The research team hypothesized that better sleep quality would coordinate with greater voter turnout. They also predicted that bad sleep might prompt people to participate in alternative political activities outside of traditional elections.

To test these assumptions, the researchers analyzed survey responses from twelve European democracies. The primary data source was the European Social Survey, which included data from thousands of participants across Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they felt rested upon waking over the past week.

These respondents also detailed their recent political actions. They reported whether they cast a ballot in their country’s last general election. They also indicated if they had participated in non-electoral political activities over the previous twelve months. These alternative actions included signing petitions, taking part in lawful demonstrations, contacting politicians, boycotting products, and working for a political party.

Because many different factors influence political behavior, the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for a wide range of variables. They accounted for the age, educational background, household income, political ideology, and the physical and mental health status of each respondent. By isolating these factors, the researchers aimed to evaluate the specific association of rest rather than the influence of other demographic traits.

Across the pooled European data, the researchers found a positive association between restedness and voting. Individuals who reported experiencing high-quality sleep were more likely to vote. This pattern supported the idea that feeling physically and mentally restored equips citizens with the necessary energy to navigate the rigid schedules of election days. Voting requires showing up at a specific place during a preset window of time, an act that can be challenging for someone suffering from chronic fatigue.

A separate pattern emerged for those who routinely woke up feeling tired. Poor sleep quality was associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in non-electoral participatory behaviors, such as protesting or signing petitions.

The researchers theorize that tired individuals might seek alternative avenues to express their dissatisfaction because conventional voting feels inadequate for addressing their immediate concerns. Citizens suffering from chronic sleep disruptions may develop grievances about social conditions, such as long work schedules or poor healthcare access. Because traditional elections happen infrequently, these individuals might favor protests and boycotts. These alternative actions offer flexible timing and allow citizens to directly address the issues affecting their daily lives.

Another biological pathway involves how sleep affects mood and social behavior. Chronic lack of quality rest can impair the brain’s social cognition network, which manages the mental processes necessary for social decision-making. Sleep deprivation often leads to social withdrawal. This biological reality provides a reason why tired individuals might shy away from the highly social environment of a polling place.

Normally, electoral and non-electoral participation happen in tandem, as people who vote are also the individuals most likely to attend demonstrations. However, poor sleep appears to interrupt this connection. Because sleep-deprived individuals often retreat from civic associations, they lack the traditional social bridges that encourage voting. They remain motivated by their personal grievances but lack the social capital to channel that energy into the ballot box.

When looking at specific countries, the association varied. In nations like Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the link between good sleep and voting held firm, while in other countries, the association was not statistically significant. The connection between bad sleep and non-traditional participation was strongest in places like France, Ireland, and Sweden.

The team then tested their models using different datasets from the United States and Germany to verify their findings. The German data allowed them to track individuals over time, confirming that a person’s immediate sleep quality aligns with both their past voting reports and future voting intentions. The American dataset included a multidimensional measure of sleep quality, which reaffirmed the validity of the single-question measure used in the European survey.

The American dataset also allowed the researchers to examine the relationship between sleep quality and the total hours spent sleeping. They found that the length of time a person sleeps only relates to their voting habits if their sleep quality is poor. For people who do not sleep well, logging more hours in bed seems to compensate for the poor quality, restoring just enough energy to allow them to go vote. For individuals who already get high-quality sleep, sleeping an extra hour or two does not change their likelihood of voting.

Because the study relies on observational survey data, the researchers cannot establish direct causation. It is possible that unobserved variables affect both a person’s rest and their political involvement simultaneously. The surveys also measured recent sleep quality against political actions that occurred months or years in the past. The researchers worked under the assumption that a person’s general sleep habits act as a stable psychological trait over long periods.

The findings raise distinct concerns regarding political representation and the health of democratic systems. In a functioning representative democracy, policymakers rely on the electorate to communicate the needs of the public. If elected officials primarily listen to the demographic that votes, they might overlook the policy preferences of constituencies struggling with sleep health issues.

Future studies could explore how sudden, acute disruptions in sleep affect political choices in real-time. Unpredictable events, such as a localized natural disaster, pandemic lockdowns, or a stressful news cycle, could theoretically alter rest patterns just before an election. Researchers also plan to investigate how specific policy choices, such as daylight saving time or workplace noise ordinances, directly impact the rest and the democratic participation of the public.

The study, “Waking up to politics: How sleep quality relates to political participation,” was authored by Fatih Erol, Nathan K. Micatka, and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz.