Chronotype effects on general well-being and psychopathology levels in healthy young adults

Abstract

Variations in diurnal preferences for activity and sleep have long been classified as morning and evening chronotypes. Although morning and evening-types do not differ in sleep architecture, earlier studies have revealed the association between eveningness and psychopathology. However, most of these works had been conducted only with patient samples. Additionally, previous research has also discovered that morning-types have a healthier lifestyle than evening-types. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess the associations between chronotypes and general well-being and psychopathology levels in practically healthy young adults, whose physical and mental health were both examined precisely prior to the research, for the first time in the literature. We found that morning-type individuals have significantly better health conditions than eveningtypes. And, participants exhibiting a tendency to evening-type were more prone to develop psychological symptoms than subjects exhibiting morning-type chronobiological characteristics. Mental health professionals should be aware that eveningness may be a risk factor for mental and physical health even in currently well young adults.

Chronotype-related differences in childhood and adolescent aggression and antisocial behavior – A review of the literature

“…Despite the high representativity of the study by Hsu et al (2012) with a total of 2919 participants and a participation rate of nearly 80%, it could be argued, that effects were confounded by the presence of physical or psychiatric disorders. Gulec et al (2013) explicitly accounted for these effects by rigorously medically diagnosing (mentally and physically) all potential participants with respect to all kinds of potential confounding medical, medication-related and psychological variables prior to inclusion in the study. Throughout this exclusion process, 220 undergraduates from the Ataturk University in Turkey (mean age 20.25 AE 4.03; 149 females ¼ 67.7%) were identified and took part in the study which focused on the relation between general mental and physical health, symptoms of psychopathology and chronotypes in healthy young adults (Gulec et al, 2013).…”

“…Gulec et al (2013) explicitly accounted for these effects by rigorously medically diagnosing (mentally and physically) all potential participants with respect to all kinds of potential confounding medical, medication-related and psychological variables prior to inclusion in the study. Throughout this exclusion process, 220 undergraduates from the Ataturk University in Turkey (mean age 20.25 AE 4.03; 149 females ¼ 67.7%) were identified and took part in the study which focused on the relation between general mental and physical health, symptoms of psychopathology and chronotypes in healthy young adults (Gulec et al, 2013). With regard to health status, the authors found in their study that more morning-oriented individuals had higher scores in a range of health-related measures.…”

“…The studies by Vardar et al (2008), Hsu et al (2012), and Gulec et al (2013) additionally demonstrated that the association seen in adolescents extends into young adulthood, perhaps mirroring the ongoing maturational processes described in the introduction (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006;Gogtay et al, 2004). Due to the lack of comparative studies, which integrate a wide range of different ages and developmental stages, as well as the predominance of studies focusing on adolescent samples, a clear answer to the question of the role of puberty in this association must remain to be answered by future investigations.…”

The Mediating Role of Pathological Worry in Associations Between Dissociative Experiences and Sleep Quality Among Health Staff

“…Sleep is a crucial part of human existence, development and emotion regulation (Agargun, Boysan, & Hanoglu, 2004;Aydin et al, 2013;Boysan, 2016b;Boysan & Kagan, 2016;Gulec et al, 2011;Gulec et al, 2013;Minkel et al, 2012;Selvi et al, 2010;Siegel, 2005b). A primary function of sleep is to ensure cortically fully functioning during wakefulness (Siegel, 2005a).…”

“…It is assumed to have both plasticity, a term referring to the 'absorb and readjust' capacity of sleepwake cycle in response to variability in personal and situational factors, and automaticity, a term referring to involuntary nature of well-adjusted schedule (Espie, 2002). Sleep has crucial implications that people with poor sleep may be subject to poor social, occupational and educational functioning (Abdel-Khalek, 2009;BaHammam, Al-Faris, Shaikh, & Saeed, 2006;Boysan, Güleç, Beşiroğlu, & Kalafat, 2010;Boysan & Kagan, 2016;Chiang, Arendt, Zheng, & Hanisch, 2014;Engle-Friedman & Riela, 2004;Gulec et al, 2013;Laakso et al, 1999;Lahl & Pietrowsky, 2006Martikainen et al, 2001;Schichl, Ziberi, Lahl, & Pietrowsky, 2011).…”