By: Maura Pacheo, a Mason student studying Communication
“Kindness heals people. It’s what brings us together – it’s what keeps us healthy.” – Lady Gaga
Many college students are living sleep-deprived lives. About 50 percent of college students have daytime sleepiness, and approximately 70 percent are not getting a healthy amount of sleep, statistics from this University of Michigan research study show. One of the solutions may be something surprising: kindness. Well-being research shows that practicing kindness can help people overcome sleep deprivation and experience healthy sleep. The connections between sleep and kindness reveal how your physical well-being is impacted by your emotional well-being.
The Health Dangers of Sleep Deprivation
If you’re not currently getting enough sleep – 7 to 8 hours every night – it’s important to try to address the problem so your body and mind get the rest they need to be healthy. Sleep deprivation can cause a variety of physical health issues, including strokes, heart attacks, and a weakened immune system, this Healthline.com article explains. Lack of sleep can also harm your mental health. Sleep deprivation can lead to increased levels of stress, frustration, depression, and anxiety, according to this Cedars-Sinai blog.
Being Kind to Yourself and Others
Being kind to yourself (self-compassion) and being kind to others (participating in a caring community) may both help support your sleep. This well-being research highlighted by Thrive Global reveals many connections between kindness and healthy sleep, including how both can help us relax our nervous systems, regulate our emotions, relieve stress, and relate to others with empathy.
Self-compassion and other kindness-related well-being practices like gratitude, forgiveness, and mindfulness may all help improve our sleep when we’re going through stress, according to this research featured by the Greater Good Science Center. The relationship between self-compassion and sleep quality involves several key mindset shifts that promote healthy sleep, this research study published by the National Library of Medicine shows:
- “Self-kindness vs. self-judgment – Self-compassionate people react with self-directed empathy and warmth when faced with daily stressors or the sleep problems themselves (instead of harshly criticizing themselves);
- Common humanity vs. isolation. Self-compassionate people cognitively classify their predicament as part of a universal human experience (instead of looking at themselves in isolation from others);
- Mindfulness vs. over-identification. Self-compassionate people pay attention to the suffering they have experienced (instead of avoiding the emotion or being totally carried away by it).”
Overall health is connected to social relationships, so you can experience healthy sleep from participating in a supportive community of people. Being part of a supportive relationship community is linked to better sleep quality, according to this study from researchers at the University of Utah and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The study noted that, “… supportive ties were positively related to sleep quality, while aversive ties predicted worse sleep quality, associations that were primarily seen for close relationships.”
Kindness Practices to Help You Sleep Well
Try these two simple yet significant kindness practices to help you sleep well:
Be kind to yourself by practicing mindfulness meditation before sleep. Give yourself a few minutes at bedtime each night to enjoy a mindfulness practice designed to relax you before sleep. This mindfulness for sleep guide from Mindful.org can get you started.
Be kind to others and help build a well-being community through Mason Chooses Kindness. When you’re enjoying kind relationships, you’re likely to be in a peaceful state of mind that promotes healthy sleep. Mason offers exactly that through the Mason Chooses Kindness campaign, which helps Mason students to “thrive together” through intentional acts of kindness. You can find lots of ideas for putting kindness into action in the Mason Chooses Kindness Toolkit. The toolkit also explains how expressing kindness to others can strengthen your own well-being along with theirs.
So, if you’re struggling to get enough sleep, give kindness a try. You can relax your body and mind by practicing kindness, and that will help you sleep well.
Additional Resources
Learn more about how to sleep well in this Thriving Together Series article.
Discover 5 ways sleep is good for your relationships in this Greater Good Science Center article.
Enjoy this loving kindness mindfulness meditation video before sleep.
Write one of these Thriving Together Series features! We’re looking for contributions on all topics related to well-being. Read other Thriving Together Series articles here and contact us at cwb@gmu.edu for guidelines. Thank you for helping our Mason community thrive together online!
