Daily Diary Reports of Social Connection, Objective Sleep, and the Cortisol Awakening Response During Adolescents’ First Year of College

Abstract

Poor sleep and alterations in the stress-sensitive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis may be mechanisms through which loneliness impacts adolescents' well-being. Few researchers have explored whether daily variation in experiences of social connection predict day-to-day variation in sleep and HPA axis activity among adolescents navigating the college context. Using daily diary reports of social connection, objective measures of sleep (actigraphy), and naturalistic salivary assessment, the present study examined within-person associations between first-year college students' social connection during the day and sleep that night, as well as diurnal cortisol activity the following day. The present study also explored trait-level loneliness as a moderator of these associations after adjusting for baseline loneliness assessed in high school. Seventy-one first-year college students (23% male; M age = 18.85; 52% non-Hispanic White) completed daily diary reports, wore a wrist-based accelerometer (actigraph watch), and provided saliva samples five times daily across three consecutive weekdays. The results from hierarchical linear models indicated that within-person increases in daily social connection were significantly associated with longer time spent in bed and more actual time asleep that night only for adolescents high on loneliness. Within-person increases in daily social connection were associated with a greater cortisol awakening response (CAR) the next day, regardless of trait loneliness. These findings illustrate that more daily social connection with others than usual may predict improved sleep quantity for lonely adolescents and a physiological index of anticipating upcoming daily demands (CAR) in general. Future intervention programs might consider including strategies focused on enhancing daily social interactions among adolescents starting college, particularly for lonely adolescents.

The impact of daily and trait loneliness on diurnal cortisol and sleep among children affected by parental HIV/AIDS

“…These findings have been confirmed with daily dairy data, wherein daily assessments of loneliness were prospectively associated with larger cortisol responses to awakening in adults and late adolescents (i.e. cortisol awakening response, or CAR, Adam et al, 2006; Doane and Adam, 2010, but see Sladek and Doane, 2015), while trait loneliness was associated with a flatter decline in diurnal cortisol in late adolescence (Doane and Adam, 2010, but see, Sladek and Doane, 2015), for a null association between trait loneliness and cortisol slope in the same age group). Despite the insights provided by those data, critical gaps remain unaddressed in this literature.…”

“…For example, Doane and Adam (Doane and Adam, 2010) found that chronic loneliness was associated with a flatter diurnal cortisol slope in sample of 108 mostly female older adolescents, while the same association was not found by Sladek and Doane in a smaller, but demographically comparable, sample (Sladek and Doane, 2015). In our study, although trait loneliness was not associated with a flattened cortisol circadian rhythm, we found that children reporting high levels of daily loneliness—averaged across the three testing days—had a flatter cortisol slope.…”

“…greater loneliness/larger CAR) (Steptoe et al, 2004; Adam et al, 2006; Doane and Adam, 2010) and a negative association (i.e. greater loneliness/smaller CAR) have accumulated (Sladek and Doane, 2015). Second, previous work suggests that CAR might be less accentuated in youth at risk, especially during the early phase of puberty (Quevedo et al, 2012).…”

Advancing a Biopsychosocial and Contextual Model of Sleep in Adolescence: A Review and Introduction to the Special Issue

“…The study by Jarrin et al (2015) also focuses on obesity and found sympathovagal imbalance to mediate the association between poor sleep (and later sleep timing and sleep-disordered breathing in particular) and obesity indices in a sample of 564 young adolescents (ages 10-12 years) atrisk obesity. Shifting gears to the CAR, Sladek and Doane (2015) used daily sleep diaries and actigraphy in college students to examine the interrelations of sleep, loneliness, and the HPA axis. The authors found that feeling more socially connected was associated with more time spent in bed and more time asleep for college students high in trait loneliness but associated with a longer sleep onset latency for students low in trait loneliness.…”

“…These studies underscore the value and importance of including biological measures in studies examining adolescents' sleep patterns and functioning. In addition, although not focused on physical and physiological characteristics, the Tavernier and Willoughby (2015) study in this issue complements the Sladek and Doane (2015) study by examining the bidirectional associations between sleep problems and social connectedness. In a 3-year longitudinal study of 942 university students Tavernier and Willoughby (2015) found that sleep quality was prospectively associated with more positive social ties and that this association was mediated by emotion regulation.…”