If you get a good night’s sleep, you’re more likely to show up to the polls and vote. On the other hand, those who roll over are more likely to participate in non-traditional political actions such as boycotts and protests. These various political actions are tied to our biological need for restorative rest. A study on sleep and civic engagement was recently published in the journal Political Psychology.
Voting and participating in civic life require considerable reserves of time and mental energy. For decades, political scientists have used resource models to understand why certain groups of people are more likely to participate in government. This model has traditionally focused on material resources. People with higher incomes, higher education, and flexible work schedules tend to be better able to stay informed and get to the polls.
Recently, scholars have begun to focus on human biology as another fundamental resource for political participation. Maintaining a healthy physical and mental state requires ongoing biological maintenance. Getting enough rest improves your cognitive abilities, regulates your mood, and protects your physical health. Unlike money or education, rest is a biological resource that cannot be accumulated or stored by individuals for future use.
Previous research in this new subfield has demonstrated that the vast amount of time people spend sleeping is related to their likelihood of voting. The researchers also found a link between a person’s chronotype – whether they prefer early mornings or late nights – and their eventual political behavior.
However, just because you sleep for 8 hours doesn’t mean you’ll wake up refreshed. Sleep quality is a different measurement than sleep duration. This includes how easily a person falls asleep, how often they wake up during the night, and whether they feel recovered in the morning. A person can spend nine hours in bed and still suffer from a high degree of restlessness.
Lead author Fatih Erol, a political scientist at the University of Idaho, teamed up with researchers Nathan K. Mikatka and Alexander Ksiazkiewicz to examine whether the quality of a person’s sleep influences how they interact with government. The research team hypothesized that improved sleep quality would lead to higher voter turnout. They also predicted that sleep deprivation could lead people to engage in alternative political activities other than traditional elections.
To test these assumptions, the researchers analyzed survey responses from 12 European democracies. The main data source was the European Social Survey, which included data from thousands of participants in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The survey asked respondents to rate how often they felt rested upon waking over the past week.
These respondents also detailed recent political actions. They reported whether they voted in their country’s last general election. They also revealed whether they had participated in any political activity other than elections in the past 12 months. These alternative actions include signing petitions, participating in legal demonstrations, contacting politicians, boycotting products, and working for a political party.
Because many factors influence political behavior, the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for a wide range of variables. We took into account each respondent’s age, education, household income, political ideology, and physical and mental health. By separating these factors, the researchers aimed to assess the specific associations of rest, rather than the effects of other demographic characteristics.
Researchers found a positive association between rest and voting across pooled European data. People who reported experiencing high quality sleep were more likely to vote. This pattern supported the idea that feeling physically and mentally recovered would give people the energy they needed to get through the grueling schedule of Election Day. Voting requires being present at a specific location within a preset time frame, an act that can be difficult for people who suffer from chronic fatigue.
A different pattern emerged for people who routinely woke up feeling tired. Poor sleep quality was found to increase the likelihood of participating in non-election activities, such as protesting and signing petitions.
Researchers theorize that tired people may feel that traditional voting is insufficient to address their pressing concerns and may seek other means to express their dissatisfaction. Citizens suffering from chronic sleep disorders may be dissatisfied with social conditions such as long working hours and poor access to health care. Since traditional elections are rare, these people may prefer protests and boycotts. These alternative measures provide flexible timing and allow citizens to directly address issues that affect their daily lives.
Another biological pathway involves how sleep affects mood and social behavior. Chronic lack of quality rest can impair the brain’s social-cognitive networks that manage the mental processes necessary for social decision-making. Sleep deprivation often leads to social withdrawal. This biological reality is why weary people shy away from the highly social environment of polling places.
Electoral and non-electoral participation occur in parallel, as those who vote are usually also those most likely to participate in demonstrations. However, sleep deprivation appears to interfere with this connection. Sleep-deprived people often distance themselves from civic organizations and lack the traditional social bridges that encourage them to vote. They are still motivated by personal grievances, but lack the social capital to channel that energy into the ballot box.
When looking at specific countries, the relevance varied. In countries such as Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the association between good sleep and voting remained robust, but in other countries this association was not statistically significant. The association between sleep deprivation and non-traditional participation was strongest in regions such as France, Ireland and Sweden.
The team then tested the model and validated the results using different datasets from the United States and Germany. The German data allowed us to track individuals over time and confirmed that their immediate sleep quality was consistent with both past voting reports and future voting intentions. The American dataset included a multidimensional measure of sleep quality, reconfirming the validity of the single-question measure used in the European study.
The American dataset also allowed researchers to examine the relationship between sleep quality and total sleep time. They found that length of sleep was only related to voting habits when sleep quality was poor. For people who don’t sleep well, spending more time in bed appears to compensate for poor sleep quality and restore enough energy to get to the polls. If you’re already getting a good night’s sleep, sleeping an extra hour or two won’t change your chances of voting.
Because the study relied on observational survey data, the researchers cannot prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Unobserved variables can simultaneously influence both a person’s rest and political engagement. The survey also measured recent sleep quality compared to political actions taken in the past months or years. The researchers based their study on the assumption that a person’s general sleep habits function as a psychological trait that is stable over time.
This finding raises clear concerns about political representation and the health of democratic institutions. In a functioning representative democracy, policymakers rely on voters to communicate the needs of the people. If elected officials listen to their primary voting base, they may overlook the policy preferences of constituencies struggling with sleep health issues.
Future research could investigate how sudden acute sleep disturbances affect political choices in real time. Unpredictable events such as localized natural disasters, pandemic-induced lockdowns, or stressful news cycles could theoretically change break patterns in the run-up to an election. Researchers also plan to examine how specific policy choices, such as daylight saving time or workplace noise ordinances, have a direct impact on the rest of the population and the democratic participation of the public.
The study, “Awakening to Politics: The Relationship between Sleep Quality and Political Participation,” was authored by Fatih Erol, Nathan K. Micatka, and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz.
