Uninterrupted Sleep May be More Important Than Amount of Sleep

Does your doctor have a sleep protocol for you? Does using a sleeping pill count as good sleep? Numerous times in the hospital I was woken up at 6:30-7 am for a blood draw.  I was never fully rested while in the hospital and I couldn't tell if my sleep was being monitored at all.
http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/11/uninterrupted-sleep-may-be-more-important-amount-sleep?
Getting uninterrupted sleep may be more important to people’s mood than the overall amount of sleep, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins University.
For the study, 62 healthy men and women underwent a three-day sleep experiment in an inpatient clinical research facility. The participants were randomly selected to either have three consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep, later bedtimes, or forced awakenings.
The findings, reported Nov. 1 in the journal Sleep, showed that by the second night those with the eight forced awakenings saw a 31 percent reduction in positive mood. Those with a delayed bedtime saw their positive mood decrease by about 12 percent compared to the first day.
“When your sleep is disrupted throughout the night, you don’t have the opportunity to progress through the sleep stages to get the amount of slow-wave sleep that is key to the feeling of restoration,” said lead study author Patrick Finan, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
After the first night, both those who experienced forced awakenings and those who had delayed bedtimes showed similar low positive mood and high negative mood.  This was assessed by a standard mood questionnaire given before bedtimes, where subjects rated how strongly they felt different positive and negative emotions.
Finan’s team also used a test called polysomnography to determine sleep stages while participants were sleeping, based on certain brain and body functions.
Those who had forced awakenings had less deep, slow-wave sleep, compared with the delayed bedtime groups, and this had a statistically signification association with low positive mood, according to the researchers. In addition to reduced energy levels, those in the forced awakening group had a reduction in feelings of sympathy and friendliness.
Finan noted that the study results can likely be applied to those who suffer from insomnia, and that the effects of interrupted sleep can be cumulative. The researchers believe the study provides temporal evidence that slow wave sleep deficit could help explain the strong comorbidity between insomnia and depression.