Feeling tired versus feeling relaxed: Two faces of low physiological arousal.

ABSTRACT: Human well-being and functioning depend on two fundamental mental states: Relaxation and sleepiness. Relaxation and sleepiness are both assumed to be states of low physiological arousal and negatively correlated. However, it is still unclear how consistent this negative relationship is across different settings and whether it changes before and after an intervention. Here we investigated this intricate relationship between subjective momentary sleepiness and relaxation states by meta-analytically analyzing several data sets from studies using the Relaxation State Questionnaire. We discovered that subjective sleepiness and relaxation were in fact anti-correlated pre-intervention. This anti-correlation provides a quantitative dissociation between sleepiness and relaxation. Thus, even though

SUBMITTER: Steghaus S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11383234 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature