Berkeley

Why Losing Sleep is One of the Worst Things You Can Do To Your Body

Published

7 years ago

January 31, 2019

When we’re in pain, we have a hard time sleeping. But how does poor sleep affect pain? For the first time, UC Berkeley scientists have answered that question by identifying neural glitches in the sleep-deprived brain that can intensify and prolong the agony of sickness and injury.

Their findings, published Jan. 28 in the Journal of Neuroscience, help explain the self-perpetuating cycles contributing to the overlapping global epidemics of sleep loss, chronic pain and even opioid addiction.

A 2015 National Sleep Foundation poll found that two in three chronic pain patients suffer from reoccurring sleep disruptions.

“If poor sleep intensifies our sensitivity to pain, as this study demonstrates, then sleep must be placed much closer to the center of patient care, especially in hospital wards,” said study senior author Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology.

By applying uncomfortable levels of heat to the legs of two dozen healthy young adults — while scanning their brains — Walker and UC Berkeley Ph.D. student Adam Krause found that the neural mechanisms that pick up on pain signals, evaluate them and activate natural pain relief are disrupted when operating on insufficient sleep.

While researchers proved their hypothesis that sleep deprivation would increase pain sensitivity — as demonstrated by an amped-up response in the brain’s somatosensory cortex — what surprised them was ramped-down activity in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain’s reward circuitry that, among other functions, increases dopamine levels to relieve pain.

“Sleep loss not only amplifies the pain-sensing regions in the brain, but blocks the natural analgesia centers, too,” Walker said.

Another key brain region found to slow down in the sleep-deprived brain was the insula, which evaluates pain signals and places them in context to prepare the body to respond.

“This is a critical neural system that assesses and categorizes the pain signals and allows the body’s own natural painkillers to come to the rescue,” said Krause, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in Walker’s Center for Human Sleep Science lab at UC Berkeley.

To further test the sleep-pain connection in more common daily-life scenarios, researchers surveyed more than 230 adults of all ages nationwide via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk online marketplace.

Respondents were asked to report their nightly hours of sleep as well as their day-to-day pain levels over the course of a few days. The results showed that even minor shifts in their sleep and wake patterns were correlated with pain sensitivity changes.

“The results clearly show that even very subtle changes in nightly sleep — reductions that many of us think little of in terms of consequences — have a clear impact on your next-day pain burden,” Krause said.

For the experiment, researchers recruited 25 healthy young adults who did not suffer from sleep or pain disorders.

Because different people have different pain thresholds, researchers began by recording each study participant’s baseline pain threshold after a full night’s sleep. They did this by gradually increasing heat levels to the skin of each participant’s lower left leg while recording their brain activity in a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner.

Study participants rated their thermal pain on a scale of one to 10 and reported, on average, thermal discomfort at around 111 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly 44 degrees Celsius).

Then, having established each participant’s baseline pain sensitivity after a full night’s sleep, researchers were able to compare how that threshold changed by repeating the procedure on subjects after a sleepless night. They found that the vast majority of sleep-deprived subjects reported feeling pain sooner, at around 107 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Across the group, they were feeling discomfort at lower temperatures, which shows that their own sensitivity to pain had increased after inadequate sleep,” Krause said. “The injury is the same, but the difference is how the brain assesses the pain without sufficient sleep.”

Meanwhile, brain imaging after a sleepless night showed marked increases in activity in the somatosensory cortex and deactivation in the nucleus accumbens and insular cortex, signaling malfunctions in the neural mechanisms that manage physiological responses to painful stimuli.

“The optimistic takeaway here is that sleep is a natural analgesic that can help manage and lower pain,” said Walker, author of the bestseller “Why We Sleep. ““Yet ironically, one environment where people are in the most pain is the worst place for sleep — the noisy hospital ward.”

Walker’s goal is to work with hospitals to create more sleep-friendly inpatient facilities.

“Our findings suggest that patient care would be markedly improved, and hospital beds cleared sooner, if uninterrupted sleep were embraced as an integral component of healthcare management,” he said

In addition to Walker and Krause, co-authors of the study are Aric Prather at the University of California, San Francisco; Tor Wager at the University of Colorado Boulder; and Martin Lindquist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations

Posts by Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations

Related Topics:causes of pain chronic pain insomnia pain pain relief Science sleep sleep loss sleep study UC Berkeley

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Bay Area

UC Berkeley Named Top Public University in the U.S. and No. 7 in the World by ‘U.S. News’

Berkeley has been consistently awarded the distinction of the U.S.’s top public university since the Best Global Universities list was first published in 2014. “A strong position in the Best Global Universities rankings recognizes a school’s profound commitment to world-class research and cross-border academic excellence,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

Published

4 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Photo by Keegan Houser/UC Berkeley.

The 2026 Best Global Universities rankings evaluated 2,250 research institutions from more than 100 countries

By Lila Thulin

U.S. News & World Report has ranked UC Berkeley No. 7 in its 2026 list of the best global universities, which assesses more than 2,250 research institutions worldwide.

Berkeley also claimed the honor of top public university in the U.S.

Released on Monday, the list evaluates universities from more than 100 countries on 13 metrics such as global and research reputation (as reported by academics and peers) and number of highly cited scholarly papers.

Berkeley has been consistently awarded the distinction of the U.S.’s top public university since the Best Global Universities list was first published in 2014.

“A strong position in the Best Global Universities rankings recognizes a school’s profound commitment to world-class research and cross-border academic excellence,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

The rankings also assess a university’s strength in various subject areas; these assessments are separate from U.S. News’ 2026 Best Graduate Programs rankings released in April.

This year, Berkeley was named in the top three nationally in seven subject areas – environment/ecology, ecology, water resources, physics, computer science, chemistry, and engineering – and in the top five for a total of 17 subjects. Subject rankings are based heavily on scholarly publications and citations as well as reputation.

In September, U.S. News also released its 2026 Best Colleges list, in which Berkeley was also named the No. 1 public institution among American universities.

That honor joins other accolades judging campus to be the best public university in the country, such as those from Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education.

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Farwest Region Deltas Celebrate Centennial With “September Breakfast” Honoring Vivian Osborne Marsh

The region was established in 1925 under the leadership of Vivian Osborne Marsh, who became its first Regional Director. Marsh was a pioneering scholar and civic leader, earning recognition as the first Black woman to receive both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in anthropology from UC Berkeley.

Published

10 months ago

September 14, 2025

Oakland Post

Farwest Regional Director, Kimberly Usher, Mayor Barbara Lee, US Representative Lateefah Simon, and Farwest Regional Representative, Radiya Ajibade. Photo courtesy of Farwest Regional Photographer Vicki P. Love.

By Antoinette Porter

Hundreds of members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and their guests gathered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union at the University of California, Berkeley, to mark the 100th anniversary of the sorority’s Farwest Region.

Marsh went on to serve as Delta Sigma Theta’s 7th National President, where she launched the sorority’s National Library Project to expand access to books in underserved Black communities in the South. During her presidency, the organization also became a prominent voice in the civil rights movement, lobbying Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation.

Bak in the Bay Area, Marsh devoted her career to advancing educational opportunities, mentoring young people, and strengthening community life. That commitment continues to shape the region, which supports initiatives in education, social justice, and economic development. Current projects include raising scholarship funds for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, voter education campaigns, and health and wellness programs.

A century after its founding, the Farwest Region of Delta Sigma Theta remains active across California and other western states, carrying forward Marsh’s vision of service and advocacy.

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Cal Performances Presents Angélique Kidjo & Yo-Yo Ma in Sarabande Africaine at UC Berkeley Greek Theatre on Aug. 30

On Saturday, Aug. 30, the pair will debut the Bay Area premiere of Sarabande Africaine, joined by pianist Thierry Vaton, percussionist David Donatien, and special guest Sinkane. The program illuminates centuries of musical interplay between African traditions and Western classical forms, using the Baroque sarabande dance, and its African ancestor, the Congolese spirit dance Zarabanda, as a gateway to exploring the deep, interconnected roots of global music.

Published

10 months ago

August 25, 2025

Oakland Post

Angelique Kidjo and Yo-Yo Ma. Wikimedia photos.

By Carla Thomas

On Labor Day weekend two of the world’s most celebrated musicians and cultural ambassadors, Grammy Award–winning vocalist Angélique Kidjo and legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma join forces for an evening of music, history, and cultural dialogue at UC Berkeley’s historic Hearst Greek Theatre.

Both Kidjo and Ma have built careers not only as great performers but as passionate advocates for cultural understanding. Sarabande Africaine is as much a conversation about shared heritage as it is a musical performance, blending genres, geographies, and histories.

“Every day there are moments when all of us can feel we are on the inside of something and also when we feel we are on the outside of something,” said Yo-Yo Ma. “To be able to understand both at the same time and oscillate between the two gives us a larger perspective on the world.”

“If your mind is open, and there is no fear, it’s easier to listen, and to question yourself,” said Kidjo.

The upcoming performance is presented within Cal Performances’ Illuminations: “Exile & Sanctuary” series for the 2025–26 season. The production explores exile as more than just physical displacement, but a disruption in identity and belonging, while sanctuary represents both refuge and the creative space where new connections and communities can take shape.

Cal Performances’ Illuminations bridges performances with UC Berkeley’s academic research, pairing the arts with conversations about urgent global issues.

Kidjo’s continued partnership with Cal Performances includes her 2021–22 artist-in-residence, premiering her music-theater work Yemandja, set in 19th-century West Africa during the transatlantic slave trade.

She also participated in the Bias in Our Algorithms and Society panel alongside campus leaders like Jennifer Chayes, and joined the Black Studies Collaboratory for a dialogue on music, diaspora, and the world.

She has since returned to Berkeley for multiple performances, most recently in 2024 at Zellerbach Hall.

Yo-Yo Ma’s history with Cal Performances spans decades, beginning in 1997. One notable project includes the 2018 performance of Bach’s complete cello suites at the Greek Theatre, a testament to his devotion to creating “transformative concert experiences in iconic spaces.”

For tickets and more information, visit calperformances.org.