Abstract
Background: Receiving insufficient sleep has wide-ranging consequences for health and well-being. Although educational programs have been developed to promote sleep, these have had limited success in extending sleep duration. To address this gap, we developed a web-based program emphasizing how physical appearances change with varying amounts of sleep.
Objective: The aims of this study were to evaluate: (1) whether participants can detect changes in appearances as a function of sleep, and (2) whether this intervention can alter habitual sleep patterns.
Methods: We conducted a 5-week, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial amongst 70 habitual short sleepers (healthy adults who reported having <7 hours of sleep routinely). Upon study enrolment, participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either standard information or an appearance-based intervention. Both groups received educational materials about sleep, but those in the appearance group also viewed a website containing digitally-edited photographs that showed how they would look with varying amounts of sleep. As outcome variables, sleep duration was monitored objectively via actigraphy (at baseline, and at post-intervention weeks 1 and 4), and participants completed a measure of sleep hygiene (at baseline, and at post-intervention weeks 2, 4, and 5). For each outcome, we ran intention-to-treat analyses using linear mixed-effects models.
Results: In total, 35 participants were assigned to each group. Validating the intervention, participants in the appearance group: (i) were able to identify what they looked like at baseline, and (ii) judged that they would look more attractive with a longer sleep duration (t(26) = 10.35, P < .001). In turn, this translated to changes in sleep hygiene: whereas participants in the appearance group showed improvements following the intervention (F(1,107.99) = 9.05, P = .003), those in the information group did not (F(1,84.7) = 0.19, P = .66). Finally, there was no significant effect of group nor interaction of group and time on actigraphy-measured sleep duration (smallest P = .26).
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that an appearance-based intervention – while not sufficient as a standalone – could have an adjunctive role in sleep promotion.
Objective: The aims of this study were to evaluate: (1) whether participants can detect changes in appearances as a function of sleep, and (2) whether this intervention can alter habitual sleep patterns.
Methods: We conducted a 5-week, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial amongst 70 habitual short sleepers (healthy adults who reported having <7 hours of sleep routinely). Upon study enrolment, participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either standard information or an appearance-based intervention. Both groups received educational materials about sleep, but those in the appearance group also viewed a website containing digitally-edited photographs that showed how they would look with varying amounts of sleep. As outcome variables, sleep duration was monitored objectively via actigraphy (at baseline, and at post-intervention weeks 1 and 4), and participants completed a measure of sleep hygiene (at baseline, and at post-intervention weeks 2, 4, and 5). For each outcome, we ran intention-to-treat analyses using linear mixed-effects models.
Results: In total, 35 participants were assigned to each group. Validating the intervention, participants in the appearance group: (i) were able to identify what they looked like at baseline, and (ii) judged that they would look more attractive with a longer sleep duration (t(26) = 10.35, P < .001). In turn, this translated to changes in sleep hygiene: whereas participants in the appearance group showed improvements following the intervention (F(1,107.99) = 9.05, P = .003), those in the information group did not (F(1,84.7) = 0.19, P = .66). Finally, there was no significant effect of group nor interaction of group and time on actigraphy-measured sleep duration (smallest P = .26).
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that an appearance-based intervention – while not sufficient as a standalone – could have an adjunctive role in sleep promotion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e12500 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | JMIR |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 26 Sept 2019 |
Keywords
- Sleep
- Public health
- Physical appearance
- Outward appearance
Access to Document
- Perucho_2019_JMIR_promotesleep_CC
Copyright © Isabel Perucho, Kamalakannan M Vijayakumar, Sean N Talamas, Michael Wei-Liang Chee, David I Perrett, Jean C J Liu. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 27.09.2019 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited.
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David Ian Perrett
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience - Bishop Wardlaw Professor
- Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences
- Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolution
Person: Academic