Going to bed angry could be ruining your sleep

Struggling to catch forty winks? The answer could lie with your mood

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We all know the old adage that you should never go to bed on an argument, but it turns out anger won’t just affect your relationship - it could also ruin your sleep.

Research from Iowa State University has found that people who are generally angry or struggle to keep their temper have a worse night's sleep than happier people.

During the study, 436 participants were split into three groups depending on how they dealt with anger.

Based on questionnaires, they were categorised as ‘anger-in’ or ‘anger-out’ subject to whether or not they expressed their rage, or people who stayed calm under pressure fell into the ‘anger-control’ group.

In addition, each person’s sleep was tracked for an entire week.

The results found that people who kept their anger in tended to have the worse sleep out of the three groups.

This, the study states, could be because such people keep themselves awake by dwelling on their frustrations and find it harder to become calm enough to drift off.

Alternatively, a physical reason that could keep angry people awake is that when one feels rage, there is an increase in cardiovascular activity, which makes it more difficult to fall asleep.

So, if something is annoying you and filling you with rage, the best thing to do is take ten minutes before bed to get it off your chest. Otherwise you could find yourself tossing and turning all night.