Perceptions of life stress and chronic insomnia in older adults.

This study compared the level of self-reported stress of 42 older good sleepers (M age = 68.2 years) and 42 poor sleepers (M age = 68.7 years). The relations among subjective ratings of sleep, level of perceived stress, and negative mood were analyzed for each group. Good and poor sleepers reported similar amounts of life stress, but the relations between life stress and sleep perceptions differed for the 2 groups. Specifically, within the group of poor sleepers, those with higher life stress had greater difficulty falling asleep and less early morning waking than did poor sleepers with lower life stress. There was no association between life stress and any sleep measures for good sleepers. These results are compatible with the notion that good and poor sleepers may have different susceptibilities to poor sleep despite experiencing similar stressful life events.