Association between stressful life events and sleep quality in Chinese university students: Mediating and moderating roles of emotion regulation.

This study investigated whether emotion regulation mediates or modulates the relationship of SLEs with sleep quality and potential sex differences. A total of 1447 Chinese university students completed the Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. The results indicated that both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression significantly mediated and moderated the negative association between SLEs and sleep quality. Additionally, sex differences were found for the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal and for the modulating roles of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in the relationship between SLEs and sleep quality. Although the present cross-sectional data does not allow us to test any causal relationships, these results help clarify the underlying emotion-regulation process between SLEs and sleep in university students and highlight the importance of considering sex differences in emotion regulation.

Associations between physical activity and proactive control and the modulating role of working memory.

Accumulating evidence indicates positive associations between physical activity (PA) and cognitive control. Proactive control, the ability to maintain goal-relevant information in preparation of upcoming task demands, is a critical component of cognitive control. However, little research has examined the association between PA and proactive control. To address this issue, a total of 132 university students were recruited and divided into two groups based on reported regular PA during past week. All participants completed two common cognitive control tasks: the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) and the Cued Task-Switching Paradigm (CTS). In comparison with the low PA group, the high PA group showed greater proactive control efficiency on both tasks. Moreover, proactive control indices significantly correlated between the two tasks for the high but not for the low PA group. Further, working memory significantly modulated the association between PA and proactive control efficiency of CTS. Although the present cross-section design does not allow us to test the causal relationship between PA and proactive control, these findings may have important implications for developing effective intervention strategies which aim to promote proactive control through increasing PA or to promote PA through increasing proactive control. Moreover, individual differences in working memory are important to consider when we aim to design such interventions.