Sleep, emotional supportiveness, and socially straining behavior: A multidimensional approach.

Abstract Objective To determine the associations of emotional supportiveness toward others and engagement in socially straining (negative) behavior toward others across close relationships with multiple dimensions of sleep health. Design Cross-sectional. Setting Community sample from the Midlife in the United States study (MIDUS). Participants Four-hundred and thirty-five participants from the MIDUS II Biomarker Project aged 35–85. Measurements Self-report assessments of being emotionally supportive and engaging in socially straining behavior toward friends, family, and romantic partners; self-report assessments of demographic and other psychological and health variables; 7 nights of wrist actigraphy and sleep diary. Results Being emotionally supportive and engagement in socially straining behavior were associated with multiple dimensions of sleep health. The inclusion of demographic, health, and psychological covariates reduced but did not eliminate these associations. Based on analyses adjusting for these covariates, being more emotionally supportive toward close others was most robustly related to higher daytime alertness, and engaging in more socially straining behavior was most robustly related to less sleep regularity, quality, and efficiency. Conclusions These findings implicate sleep health as a substantive correlate of being emotionally supportive toward and imposing social strain on others. They show that both daytime and nighttime dimensions of sleep health are important for social functioning across close relationships and highlight the need to examine both positive and negative aspects of relationships in relation to sleep.