Stages of Sleep after Psychoemotional Tension: The Individual Character of Changes

Abstract

This report describes complex psychophysiological studies of nocturnal sleep in healthy humans in normal concentrations and after emotional tension. A series of contemporary methods was used: questionnaires, psychological tests, motor tests, and polysomnography with heart rate recording. These experiments showed that psychoemotional tension induced changes mainly in the structure of the first sleep cycle, decreasing the proportion of the second stage of slow sleep in total nocturnal sleep, led to a redistribution of delta sleep, increasing delta sleep in the second half of nocturnal sleep, and suppressed the mechanisms underlying the organization of the phases of rapid sleep. Psychoemotional tension affected human cerebrovisceral functions, for example inducing increases in the frequency and variability of the heart rhythm during nocturnal sleep. The nature of these changes in sleep structure and autonomic responses depended on the personality characteristics of the individual person. Thus, the individual approach to the question of psychoemotional stress in sleep disturbances is, we believe, the most appropriate.