Subjective Sleep Quality Exclusively Mediates the Relationship Between Morningness-Eveningness Preference and Self-Perceived Stress Response

Abstract

Eveningness preference has been associated with lower sleep quality and higher stress response compared with morningness preference. In the current study, female morning (n = 27) and evening (n = 28) types completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and were additionally challenged with an arithmetic stress-induction task. Evening types reported lower subjective sleep quality and longer sleep latency than morning types. Furthermore, evening types reported higher self-perceived stress after the task than morning types. Subjective sleep quality fully mediated the relationship between morningness-eveningness preference and stress response. Poor sleep quality may, therefore, contribute to the elevated health risk in evening types. (Author correspondence: [email protected])

Keywords:

• Chronotype
• Mediation analysis
• Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire
• Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index
• Sleep
• Stress induction

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors wish to thank F. Obergfell for data collection.

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.  A. Meule is supported by a grant of the research training group 1253/2, which is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) by federal and Länder funds. DFG had no role in the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.