Studies on negative impacts of sleep deprivation continue to sleep on Blacks

Black people know intrinsically about the myriad of life areas negatively impacted by the fact that the myth of white supremacy is baked into the foundations of all American institutions. But one area that doesn’t get enough attention is how racism robs Blacks of one of nature’s most powerful healing agents – sleep.

Blacks have disproportionately higher rates of sleep disorders (sleep apnea, insomnia, more light and less deep sleep, delayed onset, more daytime sleepiness, and shorter sleep duration) compared to any other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. These disparities are compounded by the fact that they contribute to additional racial health disparities.

“Historically, sleep has been elusive for African Americans. From being shackled together en masse in the bowels of a slave ship, lying down, side-by-side, head to foot or even closer, with very little airflow and extremely unsanitary conditions, to living in tight quarters on a plantation, being worked from ‘sun up to sun down,’ fear and terror, to the belief that African people ‘require less sleep,’ African Americans have a long history of sleep deprivation and disruption. Unfortunately, the consequences of a history of structural and systemic racism on sleep and sleep-related health outcomes are relatively unknown.”

dr. karen lincoln

The problem is that we just don’t know how much these disparities in sleep disorders impact other negative health outcomes because Blacks, whether by circumstance or design, are grossly underrepresented in clinical trials.

For example, evidence strongly suggests that poor sleep quality adds to the potential to later experience Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias. However, because Blacks are nearly invisible in AD trials, the medical community’s understanding of the impact of poor sleep is based on samples of white people.

LOSS OF SLEEP MAKES US LESS HAPPY, MORE ANXIOUS

A recent study led by University of Houston Professor of Psychology Candice Alfano reiterates the fact that losing sleep is actually something to lose sleep about.

The loss of sleep, again, something that disproportionately impacts Blackfolk, doesn’t just make us tired – it can increase anxiety, degrade mood, and altogether undermine our emotional well-being. The study, for which Alfano was the senior author, published by the American Psychological Association in the journal Psychological Bulletin, synthesized more than 50 years of research on sleep deprivation and mood.

“Emotions govern virtually every aspect of our daily lives, and depriving ourselves of sleep seems to be a sure way to elect a terrible governor. Our findings confirm that even when sleep is only mildly deficient, there are measurable negative changes in how we react to everyday events,” reports Alfano, who is also director of the Sleep and Anxiety Center of Houston.

Co-authors of the report include Cara Palmer and Joanne Bower, two of Alfano’s colleagues.

“In our largely sleep-deprived society, quantifying the effects of sleep loss on emotion is critical for promoting psychological health,” said Palmer, an assistant professor at Montana State University. “This study represents the most comprehensive synthesis of experimental sleep and emotion research to date, and provides strong evidence that periods of extended wakefulness, shortened sleep duration, and nighttime awakenings adversely influence human emotional functioning.”

The team analyzed data from 154 studies spanning five decades, with 5,715 total participants. In all those studies, researchers disrupted participants’ sleep for one or more nights. In some experiments, participants were kept awake for an extended period. In others, they were allowed a shorter-than-typical amount of sleep, and in others they were periodically awakened throughout the night. Each study also measured at least one emotion-related variable after the sleep manipulation, such as participants’ self-reported mood, their response to emotional stimuli, and measures of depression and anxiety symptoms.

Overall, the researchers found that all three types of sleep loss resulted in fewer positive emotions such as joy, happiness, and contentment among participants, as well as increased anxiety symptoms such as a rapid heart rate and increased worrying.

“This occurred even after short periods of sleep loss, like staying up an hour or two later than usual or after losing just a few hours of sleep,” Palmer said. “We also found that sleep loss increased anxiety symptoms and blunted arousal in response to emotional stimuli.” Findings for symptoms of depression were smaller and less consistent. The findings were also more mixed for negative emotions such as sadness, worry, and stress.

“Research has found that more than 30% of adults and up to 90% of teens don’t get enough sleep,” Palmer said. “The implications of this research for individual and public health are considerable in a largely sleep-deprived society. Industries and sectors prone to sleep loss, such as first responders, pilots, and truck drivers, should develop and adopt policies that prioritize sleep to mitigate against the risks to daytime function and well-being.”

HISTORIC BLACK SLEEP DEPRIVATION OFTEN IGNORED

However, the study examined both age and sex as moderators of emotional outcomes, not race, even though Blacks are historically deprived of sleep.

Researchers state that “directions for future research” could include looking at individual differences to find out why some people may be more vulnerable than others to the effects of sleep loss, and examining the effects of sleep loss across different cultures, as most of the research in the current study was conducted in the U.S. and Europe, according to the researchers.

But the Black community is cautioned not to hold its breath waiting.

“Historically, sleep has been elusive for African Americans. From being shackled together en masse in the bowels of a slave ship, lying down, side-by-side, head to foot or even closer, with very little airflow and extremely unsanitary conditions, to living in tight quarters on a plantation, being worked from ‘sun up to sun down,’ fear and terror, to the belief that African people ‘require less sleep,’ African Americans have a long history of sleep deprivation and disruption,” wrote Karen Lincoln, PhD, UCI professor of environmental and occupational health. “Unfortunately, the consequences of a history of structural and systemic racism on sleep and sleep-related health outcomes are relatively unknown.”

And Lincoln says Black sleep issues are not merely a thing of the past.

“Today, African Americans face different circumstances but are still impacted by poor sleep and subsequent health disparities. Sleep tends to be socially patterned – we often observe poor, disrupted, and irregular sleep patterns among those in lower socioeconomic positions, including shift work and long hours which contribute to chaotic and irregular sleeping conditions. African Americans are often concentrated in low-skilled and low-paying jobs, with very little control and flexibility in their schedules. The effects of noise, light, traffic, air pollution, crime, and discrimination – which are socially patterned by neighborhood – on sleep outcomes have been well documented,” said Lincoln.

Even still, major studies on sleep continue to sleep on the specific impacts on Black people.