The Pendulum Swings Both Ways: Evidence for U-Shaped Association between Sleep Duration and Mental Health Outcomes

Karolina Kósa; Szilvia Vincze; Ilona Veres-Balajti; Éva Bácsné Bába

doi:10.3390/ijerph20095650

The Pendulum Swings Both Ways: Evidence for U-Shaped Association between Sleep Duration and Mental Health Outcomes

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Apr 26;20(9):5650. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20095650.

Authors

Karolina Kósa¹, Szilvia Vincze², Ilona Veres-Balajti³, Éva Bácsné Bába⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary.
² Department of Sectoral Economics and Methodology, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary.
³ Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary.
⁴ Department of Sports Economy and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary.

Abstract

Short sleep duration is a known risk to health, but less certain is the impact of longer sleep duration on various measures of health. We investigated the relationship between sleep duration and mental health outcomes in a cross-sectional survey conducted on a homogenous sample of healthy governmental employees (N = 1212). Data on sleep duration, subjective health, psychological stress, sense of coherence, life satisfaction and work ability along with sociodemographic data were collected. Sleep duration was significantly longer, and mental health outcomes and work ability were significantly better among those in at least good subjective health. Fitting mental health outcomes on sleep duration suggested a quadratic or fractional polynomial function, therefore these were tested and the best-fitting models were selected. Longer than 8 h of sleep duration was associated with a decreasing sense of coherence and decreasing work ability. However, psychological stress and life satisfaction were positively impacted by more than 8 h of sleep. Sleep duration likely has an optimum range for health, similar to other variables reflecting homeostatic functions. However, this is difficult to prove due to the left-skewed distribution of sleep duration.

Keywords: life satisfaction; psychological stress; sense of coherence; sleep duration; work ability.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Health Status
Humans
Outcome Assessment, Health Care
Sleep Duration*
Sleep*

Grants and funding

The survey was carried out in the framework of the TÁMOP-4.1.2.E-15/1/Konv-2015-0001 project. The authors were supported during the preparation of the manuscript by the GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00005 project. This project was co-financed by the European Union under the European Regional Development Fund. The funders had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results.