“There are millions of people who are awake in the middle of the night and there is a lot of evidence that their brains don’t work as well as they do during the day,” says the study.
According to specialists, during the night, negative thoughts they have “free rein” in our minds. And desires appear that harm our health, such as smoking a cigarette or eating junk food. And even worse.
Many studies have accumulated evidence over the years that suggest the human mind it works differently if you are awake at night.
After midnight, negative emotions tend to attract our attention more than positive ones. dangerous ideas become attractive and inhibitions vanish.
According to a new study, the human circadian rhythmwhich regulates changes in physical and mental characteristics that occur throughout the day, would be heavily involved in these critical changes in function.
His hypothesis, called Mind After Midnight, suggests that the human body and mind follow a natural cycle of 24 hours of activity It affects our emotions and our behavior.
That is, at certain times, our species inclined to feel and act in certain waysstates the study whose results were published in Frontiers in the psychology of networks.
During the day, for example, molecular levels and brain activity adapt to the waking state. But at night our usual behavior is to sleep.
From an evolutionary point of view this obviously makes sense. humans are a lot more effective in hunting and gathering during the dayand although the night is excellent for rest, humans ran a greater risk of being hunted.
According to the researchers, to cope with this increased risk, our attention to negative stimuli unusually increased at night.
If it ever helped us to attack invisible threats, this hyperfocusing on the negative can feed an altered reward / motivation systemwhich makes a person particularly prone to risky behavior.
Add to that the sleep loss, e this state of consciousness only becomes more problematic, researchers say.
“There are millions of people who are awake in the middle of the night, and there is a lot of evidence for that your brain doesn’t work that well as it does during the day, ”said the study’s lead author, neurologist Elizabeth Klerman of Harvard University in the United States.
“My request is that more research be done on this, because your health and safety, as well as that of others, They are interestedasked the scientist.
Klerman and the other authors used two examples to illustrate their point. The first example is that of a heroin user who successfully manages her cravings during the day but succumbs to her cravings at night.
The second is from a college student struggling with insomnia, who begins to feel a sense of despair, loneliness and despair as the sleepless nights pile up.
Both scenarios can ultimately prove fatal. Suicide and self-harm are very common at night.
In fact, some research has found a risk suicide rates three times higher between midnight and 6:00 am than any other time of day.
And people take more illicit or dangerous substances at night. In 2020, an investigation at a controlled center for drug use in Brazil revealed a 4.7-fold increased risk of opioid overdose at night.
For about six hours a day, we know surprisingly little about how the human brain works. Whether he’s asleep or awake, the mind after midnight is a mystery.
Source: ScienceAlert
Source: Clarin
