Sleep and Motivation

Sleep and Motivation

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded that one in every three adults complains of sleep deprivation. This statistic shows that sleep deprivation is becoming a concern. More so, there are many instances where people work during the day and at night in the 24-hour economy. These also indicate that sleep deprivation is a concern in society today. Sleep is necessary for a healthy body and mind. The lack of sleep is also connected to other challenges like headaches, stress, and depression. Sleep deprivation can also interfere with appetite. As such, it is clear that there is a connection between sleep deprivation and mental health. When one has a healthy mind, one is also emotionally healthy, which can be a drive towards their behavior. For this reason, researchers are interested in examining the impact of sleep deprivation on people and their behavior. Specifically, in this study, interest is channelled toward understanding sleep deprivation’s effects on motivation. Moreover, the researcher is determined to examine the connection between sleep and motivation by evaluating the literature. When literature is evaluated, the researcher can understand the areas where studies are done on the specific topic. Also, they can understand the findings that each researcher got in their study to examine the trend in the relationship between sleep and motivation. Consistently, what the researchers found common in all the studies is that ample sleep is connected to higher levels of motivation. Also, a general finding is that studies show that sleep deprivation affects people’s behavior and the way they socialize with others. Even though these findings were done on different groups of people, the results showed that sleep and motivation are directly connected and that when one constantly lacks enough sleep, they have higher chances of getting illnesses.

Literature Review

When looking at the impacts of sleep on people, the first study to be examined is the study by Axelsson et al. (2020). This study examined the effects of lack of sleep on one’s preparedness to sleep. In their study, the researchers randomly selected 123 participants subjected to sleep deprivation. They then measured the effects of sleep using sleep diaries and actigraphy. Their interests were to identify the behaviors of the individuals when they are deprived of sleep. The researchers found that sleep deprivation reduces one’s desire to engage in social activities and makes one behave in a manner that shows they desire to sleep. This study corroborated Reeve’s (2018) ideas on how sleep deprivation can alter behaviour. One limitation observed in this study was actigraphy, which is not universally accepted.

Further studies on the impacts of sleep were conducted by Mathew et al. (2021), who assessed the effect of sleep deprivation on alertness. Notably, in this study, subjective alertness was considered as motivation. This research relied on actigraphy and polysomnography to measure sleepiness in participants. Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) was used to assess motor capabilities. This study discovered that people who were deprived of sleep were less motivated and had little control over what they did. The study was comparable to the facts by Reeve (2018) that motivation increases as long as people sleep. The one limitation of this study was that it involved only male participants, and the lack of female participants makes it difficult to use these results on women since there are hormonal differences between these two genders.

Subsequently, Palmer et al. (2023) hold that sleep deprivation can affect the way people interact or socialize with others. In other words, the study examined how sleep affects emotions and social motivation. The research involved fifty-three randomly selected participants who were then deprived of sleep. Later, a survey was done to collect data on their experience after sleep deprivation. The study revealed that sleep affected social motivation. Reeve (2018) also indicates that lack of sleep can demotivate people from engaging in social interaction. The limitation of this study was the minimal sample size, which made it difficult to generalize the study outcomes. Hence, it is evident that sleeplessness affects both emotions and reasoning.

In addition, the study by Sotelo et al. (2020) examines the connection between sleeping instances and waking up. It further examines how an animal’s motivation to act or engage in daily activities can affect the interchange between sleeping and waking up. In this specific study, the researcher conducted a literature review on both animals and humans. The study has thus shown an undisputed connection between motivation and sleep. The study’s limitations are in two areas. The first area is that the study is a collection of research done on animals and humans. Thus, the result of this specific study cannot be generalized because the outcomes are mixed and may not be directly generalized to humans. However, the researchers have given information that helps understand the connection between motivation and sleeping.

Lastly, Jurgelis et al. (2022) conducted research to understand whether sleep impacts internal or external motivation. The researchers sampled 24 participants, 11 of whom were female. They engaged in an activity that tested their efforts. As such, the researchers found that lack of sleep affected the cognitive capability to engage in activities. This phenomenon extended to the rest of the body, leading to a case where the physical body was weary and unable to engage in physically demanding activity. Therefore, for this study, the researchers managed to separate sleep’s effects on the body. Moreover, sleep is seen to impact the body. It is evident that even though it impacts the brain, it demotivates it. The least motivated area is the physical body. The limitation of this study is that the researchers are more interested in separating the areas that are demotivated by sleep. While this is an insightful approach, it fails to focus deeply on the connection between sleep and demotivation.

Conclusion

When seeking to understand the impacts of sleep on human health, it is evident from the study that it plays a crucial role in people’s health. Some studies have added on the health impacts of sleep and mentioned how sleep can affect someone’s health in the future. The most important thing is that sleep has a connection with motivation. Different studies have approached motivation from other angles. Some studies have considered motivation to be the emotional drive for one to do something. In some cases, motivation is regarded as the strength to do something. Hence, in some studies, the connection between sleep and motivation is attached to the brain and the emotions. In other instances, the relationship between the two is attached to an individual’s mobility. Starting from the first study, these observations are made: sleep affects behaviour and how a person is motivated. In this study, it is evident that when one is deprived of sleep, they are less motivated to engage in social activities. The research also shows that sleep can affect an individual’s mood. The second study directly connects sleep to motor capabilities, confirming that the lack of sleep can cause demotivation because it affects motor capabilities. Studies also show that sleep deprivation makes people lack the motivation to move or have control over what they are doing. In such a case, sleep impacts the ability to move, making it difficult for someone to be motivated to act in a certain way. For instance, one can feel demotivated to move from one place to another because they are sleepy. Generally, there is a connection between sleeping and the ability to be active, motivated, and move around. This connection is what makes sleep an essential practice in the human body. People should sleep for not less than eight hours of ample sleep.

References

Axelsson, J., Ingre, M., Kecklund, G., Lekander, M., Wright, K. P., & Sundelin, T. (2020). Sleepiness as motivation: A potential mechanism for how sleep deprivation affects behaviour. Sleep, 43(6), zsz291. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsz291

Jurgelis, M., Boardman, J. M., Coxon, J. P., Drummond, S. P., & Chong, T. T. (2022). Sleep restriction reduces cognitive but not physical motivation. Nature and Science of Sleep, 14, 2001-2012. https://doi.org/10.2147/nss.s368335

Mathew, G. M., Strayer, S. M., Bailey, D. S., Buzzell, K., Ness, K. M., Schade, M. M., Nahmod, N. G., Buxton, O. M., & Chang, A. M. (2021). Changes in subjective motivation and effort during sleep restriction moderate interindividual differences in attentional performance in healthy young men. Nature and Science of Sleep, 13, 1117–1136. https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S294409

Palmer, C. A., John-Henderson, N. A., Bawden, H., Massey, A., Powell, S. L., Hilton, A., & Carter, J. R. (2023). Sleep restriction reduces positive social emotions and the desire to connect with others. Sleep, 46(6), zsac265. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsac265

Reeve, J. (2018). Understanding Motivation and Emotion. United Kingdom: Wiley.

Sotelo, M. I., Tyan, J., Dzera, J., & Eban-Rothschild, A. (2020). Sleep and motivated behaviors, from physiology to pathology. Current Opinion in Physiology, 15, 159-166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cophys.2020.01.006

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For Week 3, you conducted an annotated bibliography on a set of topics. For this paper you will choose one of the topic areas that you picked in Week 3. You will then find at least 2 more articles for that topic and include them in the literature review section ( so there will be a minimum of 5 articles cited in the literature review section).

Here is the list of topic areas that was used (choose one of the two that you used for W3 Project assignment).

Social cognitive theory
Positive psychology
Cognitive dissonance
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Mindfulness and happiness
Sleep and motivation
Expectancy theory
Child development and motivation
The paper should adhere to the following guidelines:

For the main sections it should have a:
Title page
Introduction
Literature review
Conclusion
Reference page(s)
The paper must use proper APA style for citing sources and references.
Introduction: This should be 1–2 pages in length. The introduction provides a brief overview of what will be covered and the purpose of the paper.
Literature review: The literature review is taken in part from what you had written in Week 3.
Conclusions: The difference between a great paper and a marginal one is the depth and originality of the conclusion section. This is where you bring together what you learned from the literature review (as well as through the course) in your concluding remarks regarding your topic. The discussion and conclusion section should be 1–2 pages in length.