Abstract Introduction Sleep difficulties share an intimate connection with mental health disorders, partly due to the impact of sleep on daytime socioemotional experiences (Palmer et al., 2018). A recent meta-analysis suggests that sleep has the largest effect on positive affect when compared to other types of emotional experiences (Palmer et al., 2024), and may blunt positive emotions within both social and non-social contexts (Palmer et al., 2023). However, it is still not clear how sleep is related to specific types of positive emotional experiences, or the emotion regulation of these positive emotions. Methods Participants included 168 young adults (72% female) who completed an intake assessment, two weeks of actigraphy, and daily dairies. Participants reported on their daily experiences of low arousal (calm, relaxed, and serene) and high arousal (excited, elated, enthusiastic) positive affect and their positive emotion regulation (i.e., strategies to up-regulate positive affect). Participants also reported on daily experiences of positive emotions during their social interactions that day (e.g., gratitude, compassion, love). Results Later bedtimes, sleep timing irregularity (adjusting for average sleep timing), and longer sleep onset latency were all associated with less low arousal positive emotions (r’s -.24 to -.22, p’s 03). Irregularity was associated with less frequent use of positive emotion regulation strategies (r = - .30, p = .001). Longer sleep onset latency and irregularity were also associated with fewer positive social emotions (r’s = -.22 to -.20, p’s .03). Later bedtimes predicted fewer social emotions, but effects were moderated by sex (p = .04), with the strongest effects for males. Sex also moderated the effect of wake after sleep onset (p = .04). Greater WASO was related to fewer positive social emotions, but only for females. Conclusion These findings support prior research on sleep and positive emotional experiences, and expands this work by examining both low and high arousal emotions, socially-oriented positive emotions, and positive emotion regulation. Sleep was associated with low arousal positive experiences (e.g., feeling calm and relaxed), but not high arousal, and the regulation of positive emotions. Sex may be important to consider when examining sleep and socially-oriented emotional experiences. Support (if any)
Palmer et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: