Associations between objective sleep duration, sleep duration variability, and sleep onset with emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms in adolescents: findings from the ABCD® study.
TL;DR
Investigation of cross-sectional associations between objective sleep features (sleep duration, duration variability, and onset time) and mental health outcomes in 1371 U.S. adolescents found objective sleep features were differentially associated with mental health outcomes.
Abstract
Poor sleep and mental health are closely linked in adolescence, yet most studies rely on self-reported sleep. We investigated cross-sectional associations between objective sleep features (sleep duration, duration variability, and onset time) and mental health outcomes in 1371 U.S. adolescents from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ Study (ABCD®) [year 4 follow-up; mean age 14.09 ± 0.69, 51.86% female], controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and parental education. Mental health outcomes were internalizing symptoms (emotional distress directed inward) and emotion regulation, including cognitive reappraisal (reframing emotional situations) and expressive suppression (inhibiting outward expression). Sleeping ≤7.05 h (β = 0.06 [95% CI: 0.00-0.11], p = 0.036), higher sleep duration variability (β = 0.09 [0.03-0.14], p = 0.001), with stronger effects in females (interaction: β = -0.12 [-0.22 to -0.02], p = 0.020), and later sleep onset times (β = 0.06 [0.01-0.11], p = 0.030) were all associated with greater internalizing symptoms. Sleep was not linked to reappraisal (all p > 0.05). Higher variability was associated with greater suppression (β = 0.09 [0.03-0.14], p = 0.001). Conclusively, objective sleep features were differentially associated with mental health outcomes.