Beneficial effects of sleep extension on daily emotion in short-sleeping young adults: An experience sampling study

Abstract

ObjectivesShort sleep duration has been linked to disrupted emotional experiences and poor emotion regulation. Extending sleep opportunity might therefore offer a means to improve emotion functioning. This study used experience sampling to examine the effect of sleep extension on daily emotion experiences and emotion regulation. ParticipantsParticipants were young adults (n = 72), aged 18-24 years who reported consistently sleeping less than 7 hours in a 24-hour period in the past 2 weeks. Design and settingFor 14 consecutive days, participants completed experience sampling questions related to sleep, emotion, and emotion regulation via a smartphone application. Procedures were identical for all participants for the first 7 days (“baseline” assessments). InterventionFrom days 8-14, participants were randomly assigned to either a “sleep extension” condition, in which they were instructed to increase their sleep opportunity by 90 minutes or a “sleep as usual” condition. MeasurementsDuration and quality of the previous night's sleep were reported each morning and daytime experiences of positive and negative emotion and emotion regulation were measured at pseudorandom timepoints 6 times a day. ResultsMultilevel modeling demonstrated that participants in the sleep extension condition reported significantly longer sleep times and improved sleep quality, as well as higher positive and lower negative daily emotion, compared to those in the sleep as usual condition. ConclusionA brief experimental paradigm to extend sleep length has the potential to improve sleep quality and to a minor extent mood, among young adults with short sleep.