Abstract Introduction Sleep disruption has been linked to heightened emotional reactivity and difficulties with emotion regulation. By comparing healthy individuals under normal or restricted sleep with patients diagnosed with insomnia disorder, this study aims to examine how experimentally induced sleep restriction and chronic clinical sleep disturbance influence subjective emotional responses during the use of maintain, suppression, and reappraisal strategies. Methods Seventeen healthy controls completed a normal sleep protocol containing two-night 8.5-h sleep opportunity at hospital separated by two-night at-home sleep (HCNS), while another 17 healthy adults underwent a sleep-restriction protocol in which their bedtime was limited to four hours per night for three consecutive nights in hospital settings (HCSR). Ten individuals with insomnia disorder (ID) followed the same normal-sleep protocol as the HCNS group. Following sleep manipulation, all participants completed an emotion regulation task in which they were instructed to maintain, suppress, or reappraise their emotional responses to 60 aversive images. Emotional intensity was obtained on a scale from 1 (neutral/calm) to 4 (negative/aroused). Results Preliminary analyses revealed a significant main effect of Condition (maintain vs. suppress vs. reappraise), p .001. Pairwise comparisons indicated that emotional intensity ratings were highest for maintained images, followed by suppressed and then reappraised images, reflecting effective engagement of emotion regulation strategies. Furthermore, a significant Group × Condition interaction was observed (p .001). In both the HCNS and ID groups, the expected pattern across Condition was preserved, whereas in the HCSR group, emotional intensity ratings for maintain and suppress conditions did not differ significantly (p = 0.834). Although not statistically significant (p 0.158), ID tended to report higher emotional intensity under the maintain condition compared with both healthy groups. Conclusion Preliminary findings indicate that emotion regulation strategies effectively modulate subjective emotional intensity, with reappraisal producing the greatest reduction across groups. However, the pattern differed by sleep condition: while HCNS and ID showed the expected gradient across strategies, HCSR appeared to blunt differences between maintaining and suppressing emotional responses. More definitive conclusions will be drawn as data collection progresses. Support (if any) This study was supported by NIH through a K23 award to Dr. Tony Cunningham (K23MH127464).
Zeng et al. (2026) studied this question.