4,850
Views
84
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Brief Article

Why might poor sleep quality lead to depression? A role for emotion regulation

, ORCID Icon &
Pages 1698-1706 | Received 09 Jan 2016, Accepted 03 Oct 2016, Published online: 03 Nov 2016
 

ABSTRACT

Disordered sleep is strongly linked to future depression, but the reasons for this link are not well understood. This study tested one possibility – that poorer sleep impairs emotion regulation (ER), which over time leads to increased depressive symptoms. Our sample contained individuals with a wide range of depression symptoms (current depression, N = 54, remitted depression, N = 36, and healthy control, N = 53), who were followed clinically over six months and reassessed for changes in depressive symptom levels. As predicted, maladaptive ER mediated both cross-sectional and prospective relationships between poor sleep quality and depression symptoms. In contrast, an alternative mediator, physical activity levels, did not mediate the link between sleep quality and depression symptoms. Maladaptive ER may help explain why sleep difficulties contribute to depression symptoms; implications for interventions are discussed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Jonathan Rottenberg was supported by the National Institutes of Health [MH077669-02].

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 53.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 503.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.