Appreciate a Healthy Sleep – It Can Save Your Marriage
We sleep almost a third of our lives. This process is very important for us and our health because sleep allows us to calm down, relax the body and brain.
A person who slept poorly becomes more conflicted, discontented, and irritable. Close people and partners suffer from this. Even strong family relationships can become problematic because of poor sleep.
Scientific Information
Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine concluded that good sleep is the key to a good marriage. According to the researchers, lack of sleep is the main cause of poor relationships between spouses.
During the study, experts found that a long, happy marriage will only be possible if the couple gets enough sleep at night. If partners do not sleep well, then the risk of conflict increases significantly.
Wendy Troxel presented her report on women’s sleep at the Associated Professional Sleep
Societies (APSS) conference in Minneapolis. The specialist examined the relationship between the duration of sleep in women and family relationships.The researcher studied 35 healthy couples aged 30 years, observing them for ten days, recording how much time they need to fall asleep, as well as the duration of sleep.
“We found that sleep problems affect relationships in the family, a similar state is not associated with depression. Spouses who could not fall asleep the day before reported that they felt depressed the next day, and there was a breakdown in the family,” says a professor of psychiatry from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Wendy Troxel.
However, the ladies in the presence of her husband sleep much better than alone. It’s nice to fall asleep next to your loved one and feel his warmth.
It is much more convenient to sleep separately when no one snores, does not push and pulls off the blanket. Do you sleep together or separately?
Does separate sleep harm relationships?
The most common reason spouses decide to sleep separately is snoring. It not only annoys the second spouse but increases the risk of developing hypertension and atherosclerosis.
Another unpleasant consequence of snoring is a decrease in sexual desire. According to British scientists, snoring negatively affects libido in every fourth couple of respondents. More than half of the partners admitted that remembering how a husband or wife snores, they do not want to have sex.
Besides, the researchers estimated that the restless behavior of one partner steals an average of 49 minutes of sleep each night from the other. As a result, a person deprived of proper rest becomes nervous, works poorly, quarrels more often, reduces sexual activity, which leads to devastating consequences for marriage.
American scientists have found that a wife sleeping next to a man adversely affects his brain. Regardless of whether the partners had sex or not, after a night in the same bed with a woman, the male brain does worse with tests for attention, memory, and calculations. Interestingly, similar indicators in women do not decrease.
Sleep Near Partner
The most famous study on the topic of joint and separate sleep of spouses is the book of
sociology professor Paul Rosenblatt called Two in Bed. The professor concluded that spouses’ sleep is not such a simple matter as it seemed before. Some factors push people to sleep together or separately.Yes, the spouse’s snoring or his restless behavior can make the second partner nervous, however, according to the National Sleep Fund, 61% of Americans sleep together.
Most researchers in the field of psychology argue that after intimacy, both a woman and a man need a touch of a partner.
Contact of bodies removes the tension accumulated during the day, gives a feeling of comfort and proximity. And many psychoanalysts believe that the refusal of one of the spouses to sleep together is a reflection of a subconscious decrease in erotic craving for a partner.
Sharing a bed is not only for sex but also for close couple conversations. Most of the respondents claimed that bed is the place where they talk. Here you can stay together, forget about the distracting moments and differences of interests that shared them throughout the day. Besides, there is something about the late-night that allows them to open up and communicate.
Sleep Separately from a Partner
It would seem that the joint stay of the spouses in bed is preferable to separate, but many spouses still prefer to sleep in different beds. The reasons are various: for example, a partner snores, tosses, and turns about insomnia, suffers from sleep, suffers from nightmares, often gets into the toilet, goes to the refrigerator, the spouses do not have a work schedule or they cannot agree on the optimal room temperature.
Some experts believe that separate beds will strengthen any family and make marriage long and happy. In their opinion, an adult needs a full continuous sleep for 7-8 hours, which spouses often lose due to sleep in a joint bed. Sexologists recommend a separate bed as a means of supporting the love and sexual attraction of spouses after several years of marriage. They recommend sleeping separately five days a week and then together on weekends. However, psychologists acknowledge that there are dangers in doing this. Separate sleep can lead to the separation of partners from each other and, instead of strengthening, destroy the marriage.
Conclusion
A common answer that would be ideal for everyone does not exist. It depends on living conditions, temperament, character, willingness to adapt to each other. After all, all people are different: someone has a sound sleep, and someone has a sensitive one. Therefore, it is very important to analyze your feelings that accompany the ritual of sleep, and openly share them with your partner.
With their hectic schedules, many couples often only have this time to catch up. It is no wonder why it’s crucial to their relationship. Unfortunately, snoring can force one spouse into another room for the sake of sleep, and this crucial together time is hard to replace in their busy lives otherwise.
If your marriage is suffering because you or your spouse snores, the key to reconciling is to understand that snoring is a symptom of a physical condition, such as sleep apnea, and it can be treated. There are many non-surgical, in-office and minimally invasive treatments available to snorers today. Although we at Alaska Sleep Clinic would never make the claim that we have saved marriages, we have heard back many times from patients who tell me that it wasn’t until after their snoring was cured they realized how much happier they are snuggling next to their spouse again.
About Author: Nancy Patron is a passionate journalist who enjoys writing about psychology and human relationships. Over the course of her career, she was a regular contributor to major media publications, and currently, she serves as an editor for asianwomendating.org.
