2 Surprising Ways ‘Attachment Styles' Impact Sleep, By A Psychologist

Forbes

4 days ago

Your attachment style impacts more than just how you relate to others — it can even affect how you ... More sleep. Here are two attachment styles that can keep you up at night.
Do you ever lie awake at night, wondering if your partner still loves you? Perhaps you had a disagreement earlier that day, or didn't get to spend enough time with them. So now, you think there's an issue.
You ask yourself, 'Do they even care about me?' or 'Why do we argue so much?' Anxiety plagues you and you keep tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
If such thoughts constantly keep you up at night, your attachment style may be to blame. A 2022 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin attests to this.
Researchers assessed the connection between attachment orientation and sleep quality in married younger and middle-aged adult couples. Over 100 heterosexual couples were recruited as newlyweds a decade prior, who then participated in a large follow-up investigation to examine relationship impacts on health and thriving over the course of marriage.
Sleep for couples is a shared experience, meaning one person's poor-quality or complete lack of sleep can impact the other's.
Our bodies are hard at work when we sleep. The brain has to merge useful data, regulate emotions, repair our immune system and balance our hormones. This means being deprived of quality sleep can increase risks of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, which in turn, impact our life span.
Here are two key results from the 2022 study that highlight how intricately linked attachment styles are to the quality of your sleep.
1. Anxious Attachment Can Make You Hypervigilant At Night
Imagine that your workmates had lunch together without inviting you. You feel left out, angry, lonely and sad. You start to feel anxious, and your stream of thoughts — which started with, 'Why didn't they invite me?' — ends up being, 'Something must be wrong with me.'
For someone with an anxious attachment style, experiencing social rejection can feel especially intense and destabilizing. They may even internalize such rejections to mean they are 'not good enough' or 'unlovable.'
The same pattern shows up in romantic relationships. People with anxious attachment often struggle with a deep fear that they might get abandoned. They also experience difficulty regulating their emotions and are hyperaware of potential threats and stressors.
For instance, if you're prone to checking your phone often, your partner's late response, no matter how unintentional, might leave you spiraling. You might start to read into minor rejections and analyze every detail in your partner's actions and texts, only to end up blaming yourself or even villainizing them.
This 'hypervigilance' seeps into your bedtime, leaving you awake as you overthink and scan for emotional cues.
You might be trying your best to sleep, but struggle to get past those 'what-if's' such as, 'What if I've done something wrong?' or, 'What if they're interested in other people?' or, 'What if they find someone better?'
Researchers suggest that these negative emotional experiences and the lack of security in a relationship can negatively impact the quality of your sleep, and may even lead to sleep issues like insomnia and restless sleep.
2. Fearful Avoidant Attachment May Be Even Worse For Sleep
If you thought people with anxious attachment sleep poorly, those with a fearful avoidant attachment tend to sleep even worse.
People with this attachment style may crave closeness, but are also scared of getting hurt. They want connection, but are equally scared to open up and trust someone.
In relationships, this often shows up when someone says they want commitment but panic when the relationship gets serious. They intentionally suppress emotions and thoughts they don't want to deal with, instead of facing them head on.
However, bottling up emotions doesn't stop them from surfacing. In fact, it only exacerbates anxiety and, in certain cases, may even lead to depression.
Individuals with fearful avoidant attachment face a dual struggle when it comes to sleep. On one hand, their anxiety keeps them alert and emotionally wound up. But their avoidant side leads them to keep things to themselves, even when they struggle with their thoughts.
At night, this emotional suppression weakens and their anxious thoughts creep in, making it tough for them to relax. They do not feel secure or calm enough to experience good sleep.
Having relational stress is common, but it's important to put safeguards in place to protect your sleep and overall well-being. Here are a few ways to improve your sleep cycle:
Attachment patterns can affect you as much as they affect your relationships. Gaining insight into these patterns and working toward emotional security might just be the key to great sleep. So, nurture your emotions, and the health benefits will follow.
Is your attachment style affecting your sleep? Take this science-backed test to find out: Insomnia Severity Index