Sleep and Social Wellness: Does Current Subjective and Objective Sleep Inform Future Social Well-Being?

The present study aimed to investigate the link between sleep and broader social well-being. Specifically, the current study evaluated whether subjective and objective sleep indices were associated with subsequent social well-being.

The archival data from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS II and III, Project 1 and 4) were utilized for the current investigation. The participants completed cross-sectional surveys as part of their involvement in both study waves, 10 years apart. They were 213 adults, 59.6% female-identifying, with an average age of 56 years, who completed 8 days of sleep measurement via wrist actigraphy, sleep diary, as well as the PSQI. The participants also completed the measures of depressive symptoms and social well-being.

The actigraphic total sleep time, the diary-reported sleep quality, and the global sleep quality measured by the PSQI emerged as the significant predictors of social well-being over a 10-year period.

The present study is an initial step in providing evidence for the importance of sleep for social functioning. Future research should attend to the association between past sleep behaviors and social functioning, specifically the mechanisms by which sleep is associated with social well-being as well as the temporal associations in an adult sample.