Bileviciute-Ljungar, Indre, Friberg, Danielle · Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020 · DOI
This study examined the connection between emotional awareness and sleep problems in ME/CFS patients. Researchers found that patients who had difficulty recognizing and understanding their own emotions also experienced more frequent awakenings during sleep. The study involved 23 ME/CFS patients and 30 healthy controls who completed questionnaires about emotions, while the ME/CFS patients also underwent overnight sleep monitoring.
This study provides preliminary evidence linking emotional processing difficulties to fragmented sleep in ME/CFS, potentially explaining why patients report unrefreshing sleep despite normal sleep duration. Understanding these connections could open new avenues for treatment targeting both emotional regulation and sleep quality in ME/CFS.
This study does not establish causation—it is unclear whether reduced emotional awareness causes sleep fragmentation, fragmented sleep impairs emotional awareness, or both stem from a common underlying mechanism. The lack of polysomnographic data from healthy controls limits comparisons. The small pilot sample (n=23) requires validation in larger cohorts before broader conclusions can be drawn.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Bileviciute-Ljungar, Indre & Friberg, Danielle (2020). Emotional Awareness Correlated With Number of Awakenings From Polysomnography in Patients With Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome-A Pilot Study.. Frontiers in psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00222
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-bileviciute-ljungar-2020-emotional-awareness,
author = {Bileviciute-Ljungar, Indre and Friberg, Danielle},
title = {Emotional Awareness Correlated With Number of Awakenings From Polysomnography in Patients With Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome-A Pilot Study.},
journal = {Frontiers in psychiatry},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00222},
note = {PubMed: 32273857},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/bileviciute-ljungar-2020-emotional-awareness},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/bileviciute-ljungar-2020-emotional-awareness
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.