Experimentally-manipulated perceptions of good sleep predict greater reactivity to and poorer recovery from a social stressor in university students.

OBJECTIVE

The present study was conducted to examine the impact of experimentally-manipulated perceptions of sleep on self-reported affective reactivity and recovery from a social stressor in undergraduate students.

DESIGN

The study design is experimental, as the participants were randomly assigned to either good or poor perceived sleep quality conditions.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The impact of condition on self-reported affective responses to and recovery from the social stressor were assessed as well as whether the observed effects were moderated by stress, rumination, and depression.

RESULTS

Participants in the good sleep condition reported increased negative affect (NA) after the social stressor and after a six-minute recovery period relative to participants in the poor sleep condition; participants in the former condition also reported heightened NA post-recovery relative to baseline (a comparison that was non-significant for participants in the poor sleep condition). The effect of condition on NA post-stressor and post-recovery was moderated by depression and rumination, with important implications for participants in the good sleep condition in particular.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings may have resulted from participant expectations about the impacts of sleep on their behaviour, although additional research remains to be conducted to identify the mechanism responsible for the obtained pattern of results.