09 Jul Optimistic People Sleep Better

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Jakob Weitzer

Jakob Weitzer MSc
Department of Epidemiology
Center for Public Health
Medical University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Chronic insomnia is a highly prevalent, often underdiagnosed and undertreated disease. Previous research has linked dispositional optimism to a better sleep quality and to insomnia symptoms, and showed that optimism can be trained. Since we think that positive psychology plays an important role for our health we wanted to further shed light on this topic. 

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Response: The most optimistic participants in our Survey in the Austrian population had a 70 % lower insomnia prevalence compared to the least optimistic. Results were similar for men and women. 

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? 

Response: Training optimism, or related personal traits, might be a promising tool to prevent insomnia and other sleep problems. Further, optimism training could be combined with established treatment approaches which could potentiate treatment effects. 

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? 

Response: There is a need for prospective studies to show that optimism reduces insomnia risk. Also, we do not know if training optimism translates to a lower insomnia risk. In addition, it would be of value to investigate the effects of optimism on insomnia risk jointly with other character traits, such as self-efficacy or mastery.

Any disclosures? We do not have anything to disclose.

Citation:

Weitzer, J, Papantoniou, K, Lázaro-Sebastià, C, Seidel, S, Klösch, G, Schernhammer, E. The contribution of dispositional optimism to understanding insomnia symptomatology: Findings from a cross-sectional population study in Austria. J Sleep Res. 2020; 00:e13132. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13132

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Last Updated on July 9, 2020 by Marie Benz MD FAAD