0184 Gratitude, Flourishing, and Prosocial Behaviors Following Experimental Sleep Restriction and Sleep Extension

Introduction People who are grateful, resilient, and flourishing in life show better health, including better sleep. This correlational finding is typically attributed to personality factors or to positive outlooks causing better sleep. We investigated the reverse causal interpretation: do sleep losses and sleep gains affect feelings and expressions of gratitude, resilience, and flourishing? Methods 90 adults were randomly assigned to late bedtimes, early bedtimes, or to sleep normally across a single workweek (monitored by actigraphy). The primary outcomes were changes in state and trait feelings of flourishing, resilience, and gratitude, as well as behavioral expressions of gratitude (i.e., gratitude list writing). Results Relative to the natural sleep condition, early bedtimes extended sleep by 46 minutes/night and late bedtimes reduced sleep by 37 minutes/night (actigraphy-defined). Subjective sleepiness and mood disturbances improved with sleep extension and worsened with sleep restriction. State-level measures of flourishing, resilience, and gratitude significantly improved across the week with sleep extension and significantly worsened with sleep restriction (ηp2 = .13 to .17). Trait-level measures showed modest or no changes. Sleep-extended participants wrote twice as much on their gratitude list as the other two conditions (ηp2 = .11). Most effects persisted when accounting for mood. Conclusion Subtle changes in nighttime sleep can affect gratitude, resilience, and flourishing. Addressing sleep health in society may be foundational to overall well-being and prosocial behaviors in the population. Support (if any) Support provided by an URSA grant, the National Science Foundation (1920730, 1943323), and the John Templeton Foundation (61513).