Every now and then, people who may have experienced something bad or perhaps are in a bad mood would be normally told to sleep on it. But according to a study, it seems that such situations do have certain degrees. When an experience becomes truly tragic or traumatic, it is best to try and stay awake for the time being since sleeping on it may lock bad memories and in general, be emotionally harmful.
The folks over at the University of Massachusetts did such an experiment on 100 healthy adults. They were shown unsettling images and scenes initially which they rated. After about 12 hours, they them again, with about half of the group sleeping during the break while the other half did not.
The who stayed awake for 12 hours had a weaker emotional response to the unsettling images the second time around, suggesting sleep serves to preserve and even amplify negative emotions. Their memories were also weaker than those of their well-rested counterparts, as they struggled to remember whether they had seen the images before.
