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Cardiovascular Responses to Daily Stressors as a Function of Habitual Sleep Characteristics

Year: 2014
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Experimental and epidemiological data suggest a link between sleep parameters and cardiovascular disease risk. Cardiovascular stress responses constitute one putative mechanism connecting the two. The present study sought to examine the independent and interactive effects of objective indices and self-reports of sleep on cardiovascular responses to daily stress. The study utilizes two days of ambulatory blood pressure data paired with daily diary assessments from 224 middle aged adults. Participants wore a wrist actigraph for nine nights from which sleep duration and efficiency measures were derived. They also completed a subjective sleep quality instrument. Diary ratings of momentary task demand and social conflict served as naturalistic stressors. Hierarchical linear models examined the moderating role of usual sleep characteristics on blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) levels at times of high versus low stress, and at times following initiating stressor. Lower sleep efficiency was associated with greater average HR and heightened systolic and diastolic BP responses to social conflict. Poorer global sleep quality predicted greater BP and HR responses to demand. Worse sleep quality also predicted prolonged elevations in HR responses to demand. Associations were independent of age, race, body mass index, sex, apnea-hypopnea index, and factors affecting BP readings. In sum, middle-aged Black and White adults with lower actigraphy-assessed sleep efficiency exhibit greater BP responses to social conflict. Those with poorer sleep quality show exaggerated BP and HR responses as well as prolonged HR elevations to demand than those with better sleep quality.
Language: English
Field: Psychology
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W950869189
FWCI:
Cites: 93
Cited by:
Related to: 10