MGH Researchers Note Harmful Consequences of Being Awake in the Middle of the Night
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Being awake in the middle of the night—when your body’s biological clock is telling you to sleep—can lead to a number of mental and physical health complications. Sticking to a more natural sleep-wake cycle is advisable.
Your circadian rhythms, part of the biological clock that sets your sleep-wake cycle, among other functions, can work to make sure you have consistent and restorative sleep every night and energy and a positive outlook the next day.
But if your circadian rhythms are thrown off and your sleep becomes interrupted or is shortened, a number of physical and psychological complications can follow. In a recent study led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), it appears that being awake in the middle of the night can lead to problematic neurophysiological changes.
Those changes, related to reward and information processing, as well as impulse control, can result in a negative outlook on the world and impulsive and possibly harmful behaviors. The idea that negative consequences can arise from being awake when your circadian rhythms are trying to get you to sleep was dubbed the “Mind After Midnight” hypothesis.
“The basic idea is that from a high-level, global, evolutionary standpoint, your internal biological circadian clock is tuned towards processes that promote sleep, not wakefulness,” explains MGH neurologist Elizabeth Klerman, MD, PhD, the senior author of the study published recently in Frontiers in Network Psychology.
Brain Function After Dark
When adjusting for the number of people who are awake at any given time, it’s clear that more negative behaviors and events occur at night. Violent crime is more common after dark, as is the illicit or inappropriate use of opioids, alcohol, and other drugs. And on a less-serious level, we tend to make less-healthy choices when it comes to food or leisure activities at night than we might during the day.
Some possible explanations may be fairly straightforward. The cover of darkness may lend itself to criminal behavior. And when we are done with work or errands during the day, we may be more inclined to indulge in the evening.
But as the researchers behind the Mind After Midnight theory suggest, there may be biological explanations as well. Dr. Klerman says that the circadian influence on the brain’s neural activity changes throughout the day and night. As a result, we process information differently and respond to our environment differently at various points in any given 24-hour period.
She notes, for example, that the tendency to view information in a positive light is at its strongest during the morning when our circadian rhythms promote wakefulness. Conversely, we are much more likely to put a negative spin on information we process at night.
Similarly, the body produces more dopamine at night. This can alter the brain’s reward and motivation systems, possibly increasing the odds of engaging in risky or reckless behavior. In other words, the parts of the brain responsible for controlling emotional distractions and making thoughtful decisions works differently at night.
In addition to dopamine-effected influences, the brain is also vulnerable to circadian-associated changes. If you’re awake late at night when you would normally be sleeping, your outlook becomes more negative and you begin to make unhealthy or possibly reckless decisions.
Impacts of Mind After Midnight
Most people can recall a time (or many times) when they lay awake because of insomnia, jet lag, anxiety, or other reasons. The thoughts and feelings that accompany those sleepless nights are often negative and can lead to some unhelpful conclusions or choices.
Dr. Klerman suggests that it’s important to better understand how the brain functions differently when the body should be at rest. Greater insight could help vulnerable individuals, such as those with substance use disorders, manage sleep problems and the complications that accompany them.
A better understanding of brain function changes may also be helpful for people who have to work night shifts or must otherwise be awake after midnight.
She and her colleagues are hopeful that more research can be done in this field to possibly influence policies involving the workplace, law enforcement, and social services, as well as develop personal strategies for people up late at night—whether due to necessity or circumstances.
“There are millions of people who are awake in the middle of the night, and there’s fairly good evidence that their brain is not functioning as well as it does during the day,” Dr. Klerman says. “My plea is for more research to look at that, because their health and safety, as well as that of others, is affected.”
If you find yourself awake long after midnight, just be aware that your decision-making skills may be somewhat compromised, and that a second look at matters in the morning may be the best course of action.
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