Dimensions of self-selected leisure activities, trait coping and their relationships with sleep quality and depressive symptoms

Abstract

Although leisure is presumed to be beneficial, certain profiles of leisure may be especially good. This paper tests whether dimensions of self-selected leisure activities (SSLAs) differentially relate to depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality, including (a) positivity (SSLA-PO), (b) difficulty (SSLA-DF), (c) distraction (SSLA-DI) and (d) thinking about negative events (SSLA-TN). Furthermore, it tests whether those low in perseverative cognitions (PCs) and high in ‘John Henryism’ active coping are equally likely to benefit from leisure. Participants (n = 362, 76% female) at a large university in Wisconsin rated two SSLAs on the dimensions above and completed measures of depression, sleep quality, PCs and active coping. Regression analyses showed that SSLA-TN predicted greater depression and poor sleep quality. For the moderators, more SSLA-DI and SSLA-TN each predicted greater depression for those more prone to PCs, and more SSLA-DI predicted more depression and worse sleep quality at lower active coping levels. Results suggest that not all leisure is equally beneficial, and have implications for the design of leisure-based interventions.

Key Words:

• Leisure time
• stress management
• depression
• sleep quality
• perseverative cognition
• John Henryism active coping

Acknowledgements

This manuscript (8030 total words) is based on an abstract submitted to the 2016 meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants in the study. We thank our participants for their feedback.