Relationship between emotions, sleep and wellbeing

In recent decades, increasing investigation on sleep has led to the definition and characterization of its vital functions and features. In addition to its well-known role of sleep in memory consolidation, one crucial function of sleep is emotion regulation. In adolescence, emotion regulation is not fully developed, leading to heightened emotional experience and increased risk of unwanted psychological/behavioural outcomes. During adolescence, the development of emotion regulation is contingent on the complete maturation of the prefrontal cortex, acting as a top-down inhibitor of subcortical structures like the amygdala. However, biopsychosocial factors prevent adolescents from obtaining adequate amounts of sleep, and lack of sleep can specifically affect emotion regulation, observable at the psychological/behavioural level as increased negative affect, disrupted well-being and frank psychopathology. This chapter briefly summarizes scientific literature on sleep in adolescence, focusing on psychological/behavioural consequences of poor sleep (e.g. chronic sleep deprivation). From a psychophysiological standpoint, in addition to the well-assessed role for REM sleep in emotion, an under-investigated role is suggested for specific features of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep (i.e. slow waves, sleep slow oscillations and sleep spindles) in the maturation of the adolescent brain and, consequently, in emotion regulation. Future studies of sleep features in healthy sleep and sleep loss may provide a unique window onto adolescent cortical maturation, emotion regulation and well-being.