A study of young people in Finland found that those with pronounced compassion tend to have fewer sleep problems. This association disappeared when depressive symptoms were taken into account, indicating that compassion might buffer against sleep difficulties by reducing the symptoms of depression. The study was published in Brain and Behavior.
Sleep problems have become one of the leading health issues in Western countries. These problems encompass a range of disturbances that affect a person’s ability to achieve restorative and uninterrupted sleep. Individuals with sleep problems may have difficulties falling asleep (insomnia), suffer from frequent awakenings during the night, or wake up too early in the morning.
Sleep problems may also manifest as conditions like sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, or parasomnias, which lead to disruptions in sleep patterns. Persistent sleep problems can result in fatigue, impaired ability to work, and mood disturbances. They can adversely impact overall health and well-being.
Much research has been focused on understanding the origins of sleep problems. Factors like depression, stress, pain and physical illness, but also adverse health behavior and irregular work conductions were identified as risk factors for developing sleep problems. However, researchers also found that certain psychological characteristics might make one less vulnerable to developing sleep difficulties. One such characteristic is compassion. Compassion is a deep and genuine concern for the well-being and suffering of others, coupled with a desire to alleviate their pain or distress.
Study author Iina Tolonen and her colleagues wanted to examine the relationship between compassion and a variety of sleep quality indicators. They wanted to know whether high-compassion individuals sleep more and better, but also whether compassion predicts the likelihood that a person will develop sleep difficulties over an 11-year period. The researchers were also interested in examining whether it is compassion that leads to fewer sleep difficulties or vice versa.
For their research, they utilized data from the Young Finns Study, a longitudinal study initiated in 1980 in Finland. This study, spanning 37 years, involved periodic data collection. Initially, in 1980, the study comprised 3,596 participants, all Finnish children aged between 3 and 18 years, born from 1962 to 1977. The participants were selected to represent the Finnish demographic accurately.
The team’s analysis focused on participants who had undergone compassion assessments in 2001 and 2012 and had their sleep patterns evaluated in 2001, 2007, and 2012. Only those participants with complete demographic data from 1980 and 2011, health behavior and work condition reports from 2011, and information on depressive symptoms in 2012 were included. The Temperament and Character Inventory was used to gauge compassion, while the Jenkins Sleep Scale and a segment of the Maastricht Vital Exhaustion Questionnaire assessed sleep disturbances. Participants were also asked to report their sleep durations.
The results showed that individuals with elevated compassion levels generally perceived fewer sleep deficiencies and had fewer sleep disturbances. Even after factoring in demographic data, these associations persisted. Yet, when adjusted for depressive symptoms, the connection between compassion and sleep patterns disappeared.
Individuals with high compassion tended to also have fewer sleep problems 11 years later. This link was not dependent on demographic characteristics, but also disappeared when depressive symptoms were taken into account. Further analysis showed that it is likely that high compassion leads to fewer sleep problems and not vice versa.
“Using a comparatively large population-based sample, we found that high compassion was cross-sectionally associated with better sleep, including lesser perceived sleep deficiency and fewer sleep difficulties,” the study authors concluded. “Compassion was not associated with sleep duration (i.e., the likelihood of being a short or long sleeper). High compassion also longitudinally predicted fewer sleep difficulties over the 11-year follow-up. We also found that the effect of compassion on most sleep indicators (with the exception of sleep difficulties in the cross-sectional analysis) disappeared after controlling for depressive symptoms, possibly implying that depressive symptoms mediate the pathway from high compassion to fewer sleep issues.”
The study makes a valuable contribution to the scientific understanding of factors affecting sleep quality. However, it also has limitations that need to be considered. Notably, all assessments were based on self-reports making them subjective to possible bias. Additionally, the study did not consider short-term effects of compassion on sleep difficulties.
The study, “High compassion predicts fewer sleep difficulties: A general population study with an 11-year follow-up”, was authored by Iina Tolonen, Aino Saarinen, Sampsa Puttonen, Mika Kähönen, and Mirka Hintsanen.
