Worried sleep: 24-h monitoring in high and low worriers
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 11, 2026

Multi-Modal Home Sleep Monitoring in Older Adults
Published on: January 26, 2019
Sigrun Weise1, Jason Ong, Noemi A Tesler
1Stanford University School of Medicine & VA Palo Alto Health Care System, 3801 Miranda Avenue, Building 4, M/C 116F, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA. sigrun.weise@gmail.com
Background:
Commonly used trait measures might not accurately capture the relationship between worry and sleep difficulties in real life.
Methods:
In a 24-h ambulatory monitoring study, high and low trait worriers maintained a log of worry and sleep characteristics while actigraphy, heart rates (HR), skin conductance (SC), and ambient temperature were recorded.
Results:
Worrying in bed on the night of the recording was associated with longer self-reported and actigraphic nocturnal awakenings, lower actigraphic sleep efficiency, higher HR, lower HR variability, elevated SC level, and more non-specific SC fluctuations compared to not worrying in bed. High trait worriers had higher HR during waking and sleep, and reported shorter total sleep time and poorer sleep quality.
Conclusions:
While trait worry is mainly associated with subjective sleep difficulties, worrying in bed impairs sleep according to both subjective and objective sleep parameters, including heightened sympathetic and reduced parasympathetic activation.
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