A recent study conducted in Finland has discovered a connection between practicing compassion in life and experiencing fewer sleep problems. The researchers concluded that compassion contributed to reducing symptoms of depression, ultimately leading to improved sleep quality.
Previous research on sleep predominantly focused on factors such as depression, stress, pain, and physical illnesses. It was later recognized that healthy behaviors and irregular work schedules also played a crucial role in determining the quality of sleep. However, this groundbreaking research has provided insights into certain psychological traits that might influence an individual’s sleep patterns, with compassion being one of these traits.
Compassion, in this context, is defined as a deep and genuine concern for the well-being and suffering of others, coupled with a desire to alleviate their pain or distress.
The study, led by Iina Tolonen and her research team, aimed to investigate the relationship between compassion and various sleep quality indicators. They sought to determine if individuals with high levels of compassion tend to experience better and more restful sleep and whether a lack of compassion might predict the likelihood of developing sleep problems over an 11-year period. The researchers were also interested in exploring whether compassion influences the reduction of sleep difficulties or if it’s the other way around.
To conduct their research, they utilized data from the Young Finns Study, which began in 1980 in Finland and spanned 37 years. This long-term study involved periodic data collection and initially included 3,596 participants. Finnish children aged 3 to 18 years, born between 1962 and 1977, were chosen to accurately represent the Finnish population.
The results of the study indicated that individuals with higher levels of compassion tended to experience fewer sleep deficiencies and disturbances. Moreover, better compassion was linked to fewer sleep problems even after 11 years.
In the words of the study authors, “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.” They also noted that “compassion was not associated with sleep duration (i.e., the likelihood of being a short or long sleeper).” Furthermore, the research demonstrated that “high compassion also longitudinally predicted fewer sleep difficulties over the 11-year follow-up.” However, they found that the influence of compassion on most sleep indicators, except sleep difficulties in the cross-sectional analysis, disappeared after controlling for depressive symptoms. This suggests that depressive symptoms may mediate the pathway from high compassion to fewer sleep issues.
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