Study Says ‘Don’t Go To Sleep Angry’ Is On Point

Ever heard of the phrase, “Don’t go to sleep angry?” For those who have been alive during the past century or so, chances are high that this is the case. If so, a recent study shows that there is a good reason why this advice has been around for a long time. It’s a good one.

Sleeping angry is something that a lot of people have had to do for numerous reason. Some examples include a fight with one’s spouse, disagreement with parents or family members, or just seeing a favorite character die in Game of Thrones. Whatever the case, researchers from the Beijing Normal University encourage finding ways to get rid of the feeling before going to sleep, The Guardian reports.

Yunzhe Liu led the study which enlisted the participation of 73 subjects, all of whom were healthy males and were in college. The participants were shown a series of images, many of which were disturbing. They were then asked to either recall certain images or forget about them.

The experiment lasted for two days. During that time, the participants were tested twice. Once after just 30 minutes of being shown the disturbing images. Then another time after getting a good night’s sleep.

Based on the results, it’s much more difficult to forget about certain memories that carried negative emotions once the subjects slept on it, compared to when they were asked to do so a half hour after being shown said images. This means that if someone were to go to sleep angry, they would be more likely to stay angry or to carry around the negative emotion for longer, MedicalXpress reports.

With regards to benefits from the research, other than forcing couples to reconcile before bedtime, advancing treatments of PTSD patients is a potential target. However, the researchers caution that since the participants during the test were of healthy minds, there is no guarantee that people with psychological issues would even gain anything from the results of the study.