Scientific Proof You And Your S.O. Need To Sleep In This Weekend

As if you needed an excuse.

After a long night out, you drag yourself out of bed, shuffle over to the kitchen counter and struggle through the process of administering a K-Cup to your Keurig. You take a seat with a bowl of Raisin Bran before you. You feel awful and you‘re dreading the full day of obligations that lies ahead. As Jewel would say, you’re half alive, but you feel mostly dead. You raise your head from your cereal bowl when you hear a familiar voice. It’s your partner…or could it be the devil? “Are you going to be ready at 10? We cannot be late.” If this scenario sounds familiar, you know this conversation [and likely the entire day] is headed for disaster—and you probably won’t be shocked to hear that researchers recently found that people who get less sleep tend to be less satisfied in their relationships. A new study in the Journal of Family Psychology describes how Florida State University researchers Heather M. Maranges and James K. McNulty enlisted 68 couples from northern Ohio to study sleep and it’s effect of relationships. All subjects were newlyweds (less than six months into marriage), heterosexual and averaged 24-years of age. The study included a daily diary for each of the couples to analyze the implications of sleep on everyday marital evaluations. For seven days, each couple reported how much sleep they’d gotten the previous night, their contentment in various relationship domains (including sex, affection, chores, dependability and conflict resolution), and overall satisfaction in their marriage and partner. An in-depth analysis revealed that spouses were happier in their relationships on days after they’d slept for a longer period of time. Furthermore, the study showed that sleep was especially impactful for the men in the relationship. Extra sleep acted as a buffer for specific negative events, making evaluations and general satisfaction more positive on a broader scale. Of course, relationships are complex. There are many factors that go into a happy, healthy relationship—but taking care of your health is a good way to predict marital satisfaction. Or, at least some level of improvement.