Sleepy wife may take it out on hubby

Women have a new reason to get help with their insomnia â€" poor sleep might be damaging their marriages.


After a bad night’s sleep women â€" but not men â€" tend to have more negative interactions with their spouses, a new study shows.
“Other research has shown that sleep disturbance and deprivation has profound effects on mood, irritability and frustration tolerance,” said the study’s lead author, Wendy Troxel, an assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. “And the person you’re most likely to take it out on is not your boss or some random person, but your spouse.”
The big surprise for Troxel and her colleagues was that insomnia in men didn’t appear to affect a couple’s relationship.
Eyeing the impact of insomnia on marriage, Troxel and her colleagues studied 35 couples who had healthy marriages. For 10 nights, volunteers were asked to wear on their wrists devices that keep track of the time spent sleeping.
Each day, researchers asked the 70 men and women to answer eight questions designed to ferret out problems caused by lack of sleep. Four questions looked for positive interactions, such as “felt supported or valued by spouse,” and four looked at negative ones, such as “felt criticized or ignored by spouse.”
When women had trouble getting to sleep the impact was obvious to both them and their husbands: There were fewer positive interactions and more negative ones during the day.

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