If you’ve been spending these last few weeks wishing you had someone to cuddle up with because everything seems cold and weird and scary, but you do not have anyone to cuddle with, I have excellent news for you. Even if you did find the human of your dreams, science says sleeping without a partner could be better for your health.
The study that confirms all of our loneliness is keeping us safe, comes to us from the University of Leeds and Silentnight, who found that 29 percent of people say their partner keeps them from being able to get a proper goddamn night’s sleep. This is admittedly depressing and also a little hilarious because OMG, are those couples OK?
Anyway, Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan said that it might be a better idea for couples to have separate rooms in order to get a good amount of sleep and be healthier overall. They also add that sleeping alone isn’t going to solve the whole problem, since you should also think about how you say goodnight to your partner before heading off to your new “no boning partners allowed” room of one’s own.
Ramlakhan says:
“To be able to fall into a restorative sleep, we need to feel safe, secure and protected, and relationships can bring us this sense of security. Sharing a kiss with the one you love before bedtime shifts your mindset away from the stress of the day – 36 percent of us rely on this relief, saying we feel that if we don’t get the chance to kiss our loved ones goodnight, our sleep would be disturbed.”
We also know that women need more sleep than men, so it would probably make even more sense for women to sleep separate from their partners. In other words, good for you if you’re a lady and you sleep alone every day anyway.
Plus, women are more prone to insomnia than men are, so add a tossing and turning partner to that mix and you’re almost definitely going to feel like crap the next day, and probably most of the week.
Oh, and bonus side effect, if you are sleep deprived, your brain can’t function the way it should, which can affect so many things in your body, both physically and emotionally. And if your sleepless nights caused by your tossing and turning partner go on for long enough, you can develop chronic illnesses, which is not a chill way to live and will probably cause you to resent your partner. No one wins here, guys.
So, single friends cheer to you for wanting to cuddle with someone but also knowing that because you do not have someone to cuddle nightly you might actually be ahead of the wellness game. Science says you’re right.
Original by Lane Moore
