Sleeping is a great pleasure, but it is also an essential need for the proper functioning of our body. On average it is advised that a person sleep between 7 and 9 hours. If these figures are altered for long periods, problems may appear, both physically and psychologically. For example, a good rest is necessary to reduce stress levels, fix the necessary memories or have good cardiovascular health. Unfortunately, many people have to deal with insomnia that prevents them from achieving these hours of sleep. It can be due to many reasons, from everyday stress to your religious beliefs. The latter may seem crazy, but it is what is discussed in a recent article, which concludes that atheists sleep better.
What they fail to explain in this work, recently published in the journal sleepingis the reason why this curious phenomenon seems to occur.
Atheists sleep better and so do agnostics
The authors of this study, from the Baylor UniversityThey used data from the Baylor Religion Survey, whose participants had answered a series of questions about their religious habits. Among them, there were also some issues related to their sleep routines, so it could be checked if there was any relationship. So it was.
For the sample to be sufficiently representative, both atheists and agnostics were quantified in a single group. On the other side were those who did claim to have some religious belief. The latter were divided into two groups, the Catholics and the Baptists. There were not enough people of another religion to be able to do a statistically significant study. Altogether, they were 1,501 the people who participated in the study.
Among them, they observed that agnostics and atheists sleep better, because specifically 73% had sleep patterns above 7 hours. Instead, this only happened with 63% of Catholics and 55% of Baptists.
For what is this?
Although it seems contradictory, the survey also shows that those participants who slept more than seven hours believed they had a higher chance of going to heaven. However, this perception was not related to the ability to fall asleep, hence there was not a greater number of believers among those who slept better. In short, people without established religious beliefs have an easier time sleeping; but why?
This is something to which, at least for now, researchers have not been able to answer. For now, his theory is that adequate sleep brings higher doses of optimism, hence the beliefs about going to heaven among the religious. But why atheists sleep better is unclear. It is often said that to fall asleep it is important to have a clear conscience. Does this mean that those who do not believe in anything better silence their conscience? More surveys and more research will be needed to answer this. To begin with, according to the authors themselves, the sample should be extended by repeating the procedure in other countrieswith people of other beliefs, since this only includes Americans with two specific religions.