Two consecutive nights of restricted sleep could be enough to make someone appear less attractive to others, as well as making people less interested in hanging out with them, according to a joint study from New York University and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
25 Swedish students were studied upon which included 14 women, 11 men- aged 18 to 47 years old, who had their pictures clicked after two consecutive nights of poor quality sleep, just 4.25 hours and also after when they had a proper sleep of about 7.5 hours.
The researchers then took to the streets of Stockholm to show the two sets of photographs to 122 strangers, asking them a range of questions from "how much would you like to socialize with this person in the picture?" to "how trustworthy is this person?"
The paper also noted that "although attractiveness may only be weakly related to actual health, faces that look healthy are also considered attractive".
Sundelin and colleagues speculate that the effect of sleep deprivation on skin blood coloration may partly explain why poorly rested adults were rated less attractive and healthy.
In even more bad news for poor sleepers, they found that people are less inclined to want to socialize with you if you're exhausted. They were also asked to rate the subjects on attractiveness, health, sleepiness and trustworthiness. But there were small differences in the ratings depending on whether the photo showed a person rested or sleep deprived.
As IFL Science put it, "basically, when you see someone who looks sick, the last thing you want to do is hang out with them". The Royal Society Open Science journal also found people viewed the more worn out individuals as less attractive.
"People seem to be able to tell when someone needs more sleep, and are more inclined to leave them alone in that case", the authors wrote in the new work.
As a result, they were less attractive to potential partners and less likely to be chosen by friends and colleagues to socialise with.
Not like we needed another excuse for a sleep in!
"If someone looks exhausted, they look less interested in being with you and as if they would rather be asleep or alone", he said.
It's good to know you've got options if you've had a few rough nights, but Sundelin still encourages you to prioritize getting more sleep.
