What time do you plan to sleep tonight? An intense longitudinal study of adolescent daily sleep self-regulation via planning and its associations with sleep opportunity.

BACKGROUND: Most adolescents are sleep deprived on school days, yet how they self-regulate their sleep-wake behaviours is poorly understood. Using ecological momentary assessment, this intense longitudinal study explored patterns of adolescents' daily bedtime and risetime planning and execution, and whether these behaviours predicted sleep opportunity. METHODS: Every afternoon, for 2 school weeks and the subsequent 2 vacation weeks, 205 (54.1% female, 64.4% non-White) adolescents from year 10 to 12 (M ± SDage = 16.9 ± 0.9) reported their plans for bedtime (BT) that evening, and for risetimes (RT) the following day. Actual daily sleep was measured via actigraphy and sleep diary. RESULTS: Some adolescents never planned bedtime (school 19.5%, non-school 53.2%) or risetime (school 1.5%, non-school 24.4%). More adolescents planned consistently (≥75% of days) on school (BT = 29.9%, RT = 61.3%) compared to non-school nights (BT = 3.5%, RT = 2.5%). On average, adolescents went to bed later than planned, with longer delays on non-school (71 min) compared to school nights (46 min). Of those who executed their plans within ≤15 min, more did it consistently (≥75% of days) on school (BT = 40.9%, RT = 67.7%) than on non-school nights/days (BT = 29.7%, RT = 58.6%). Mixed effects models utilizing daily data, controlling for sex, race, and study day, showed that bedtime planning predicted longer time in bed (TIB; p < .01) on school and shorter TIB on non-school nights (p < .01); and greater delay in actual (compared to planned) BT predicted shorter TIB (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents may require support during the transition from parent-controlled to autonomous sleep self-regulation. Bedtime planning on school nights and going to bed as planned are two modifiable sleep regulatory behaviours that are protective and potential therapeutic targets for increasing sleep opportunity in adolescents.

Vulnerability to sleep-related affective disturbances? A closer look at dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep as a moderator of daily sleep-affect associations in young people.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sleep and affect are closely related. Whether modifiable cognitive factors moderate this association is unclear. This study examined whether Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep moderate the impact of sleep on next-day affect in young people. METHODS: Four hundred and sixty-eight young people (205 adolescents, 54.1% female, M ±â€¯SDage=16.92 ±â€¯0.87; 263 emerging adults, 71.9% female, M±SDage=21.29 ±â€¯1.73) self-reported sleep and affect, and wore an actigraph for 7-28 days, providing >5000 daily observations. Linear mixed-effects models tested whether Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep moderated daily associations between self-reported and actigraphic sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and next-day affect on between- and within-person levels. Both valence (positive/negative) and arousal (high/low) dimensions of affect were examined. Covariates included age, sex, race/ethnicity, day of week, and previous-day affect. RESULTS: Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep significantly moderated sleep and high arousal positive affect associations on between- but not within-person levels. Individuals with higher Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep (+1 SD) and lower average sleep duration (actigraphic: p = .020; self-reported: p = .047) and efficiency (actigraphic: p = .047) had significantly lower levels of high arousal positive affect. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep did not moderate relationships between sleep duration and low arousal positive affect (p ≥ .340). CONCLUSIONS: Young people with more unhelpful beliefs about sleep and shorter, or poorer, sleep may experience dampened levels of high arousal positive affect. DBAS may constitute a modifiable factor increasing affective vulnerability on a global but not day-to-day level. Intervention studies are needed to determine if changing Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep may reduce sleep-related affect disturbances in young people.

Sleep and stress in adolescents: the roles of pre-sleep arousal and coping during school and vacation.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This study explored the relationship between stress and actigraphy-measured and self-reported sleep in adolescents during periods of restricted (school) and unrestricted (vacation) sleep opportunities. We further examined whether (1) cognitive pre-sleep arousal (PSA) mediated the relationship between stress and sleep onset latency (SOL), and (2) coping moderated the effect of stress on PSA. METHODS: Participants were 146 (77 females) adolescents (M = 16.2, SD = 1.0) recruited from the community. Actigraphy assessed daily sleep over the last week of a school-term and the following two-week vacation. The following self-report measures were administered during both school and vacation: the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Inventory of High-School Students Recent Life Experiences (stress), Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, and the Brief COPE (coping). RESULTS: Path analyses showed that during both school and vacation, higher cognitive PSA mediated the relationship between higher stress and longer self-report SOL (p < 0.01). During vacation, higher PSA also mediated the relationship between higher stress and longer actigraphy SOL (p < 0.05). During vacation (but not school), problem-focused coping moderated the mediating effects of PSA (p < 0.05), such that more frequent use of coping was associated with weaker association between stress and cognitive PSA, and shorter actigraphy and self-report SOL. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive PSA and coping may be two modifiable factors influencing how stress affects adolescents' sleep onset. Interventions that reduce cognitive arousal at bedtime may therefore shorten adolescents' sleep onset during both school and vacation. Further, the use of problem-focused coping strategies might be protective against the effects of stress on sleep onset, especially during vacation periods. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: This paper expands the understanding of the stress-sleep association in adolescents by examining the mediating role of cognitive pre-sleep arousal and the moderating effects of coping. By examining these associations during both school and vacation periods, findings are likely to be applicable to both restricted and relatively unconstrained sleep conditions. Practically, our findings suggest that interventions directed towards the reduction of cognitive pre-sleep arousal may improve adolescents' sleep onset latency. Additionally, fostering healthy coping, especially problem-focused coping strategies such as problem solving, may mitigate the effects of stress on adolescents' sleep.

Pilot Validation of Ambulatory Activity Monitors for Sleep Measurement in Huntington's Disease Gene Carriers.

Sleep disturbance occurs early in Huntington's disease (HD). Consumer- and research-grade activity monitors may enable routine assessment of sleep disturbances in HD. We compared Actiwatch Spectrum Pro, Jawbone UP2 and Fitbit One to the gold standard, polysomnography, in four late presymptomatic and three early HD participants. Compared to polysomnography, all ambulatory monitors overestimated total sleep time by >60 minutes and sleep efficiency by ∼15%. Thus, for assessment of specific sleep parameters in HD, none of the activity monitors are sufficiently accurate to replace polysomnography, although they may be sufficient for estimating overall sleep-wake patterns. Larger sample replication is required.