Bed Sharing Couples and Sleep

Romantic relationships impact mental health. Factors like increased social support, increased access to resources, and decreased loneliness have been posited as mechanisms by which romantic relationships confer mental health benefits. Recent research investigating the effects of co-sleeping has suggested that improved sleep quality may also account for the mental health benefits enjoyed by those in romantic relationships. However, this research is limited. Most of the studies comparing co-sleep to individual sleep have used actigraphy, which calculates sleep quality based on body movements. The results of these studies have been inconclusive and inconsistent, finding that co-sleeping is either linked to disrupted sleep patterns in both sexes, or only in women, and finding that married couples spend less time awake following sleep onset compared to unmarried single participants.