Associations Between Daily Sleep and Mood Among Ethnically and Racially Minoritized Adolescents During High School: A...

High school is a pivotal transition period where adolescents experience changes in their sleep patterns and daily mood especially among ethnically and racially minoritized adolescents. This study focuses on Black and Latiné adolescents and investigates the associations between sleep and next-day mood as well as changes from 9th to 11th grade.

Analytic data were collected annually between 2015 and 2017, corresponding to students' 9th through 11th grades, from five high schools in the northeastern United States. In a sample of 181 Black and Latiné adolescents (at baseline: M_age = 14.27; SD = 0.66), this study examined the within-person level and between-person level associations between sleep (e.g., sleep duration and wake minutes after sleep onset) and mood (positive and negative mood) from their 9th to 11th grade.

At the within-person level, on days with longer daily sleep duration, adolescents reported lower levels of negative mood the next day. At the between-person level, longer sleep duration was associated with higher positive mood when adolescents were in the 11th grade. Longer sleep duration and longer wake minutes after sleep onset were associated with higher negative mood when adolescents were in the 11th grade, but these associations were not significant in the 9th or 10th grades.

Healthy sleep habits may serve as a protective factor for positive mood and well-being during adolescence and the critical developmental transition to high school. For Black and Latiné adolescents, the 11th grade may be particularly important for sleep and mood associations.