Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Aug;33(8):813-22.
doi: 10.1037/hea0000077.

Daily self-disclosure and sleep in couples

Heidi S Kane  1 , Richard B Slatcher  1 , Bridget M Reynolds  2 , Rena L Repetti  2 , Theodore F Robles  2
Affiliations

Daily self-disclosure and sleep in couples

Heidi S Kane et al. Health Psychol. 2014 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: An emerging literature provides evidence for the association between romantic relationship quality and sleep, an important factor in health and well-being. However, we still know very little about the specific relationship processes that affect sleep behavior. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine how self-disclosure, an important relational process linked to intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and health, is associated with sleep behavior.

Method: As part of a larger study of family processes, wives (n = 46) and husbands (n = 38) from 46 cohabiting families completed 56 days of daily diaries. Spouses completed evening diaries assessing daily self-disclosure, relationship satisfaction, and mood and morning diaries assessing the prior night's sleep. Multilevel modeling was used to explore the effects of both daily variation in and average levels across the 56 days of self-disclosure on sleep.

Results: Daily variation in self-disclosure predicted sleep outcomes for wives, but not for husbands. On days when wives self-disclosed more to their spouses than their average level, their subjective sleep quality and sleep efficiency that night improved. Furthermore, daily self-disclosure buffered the effect of high negative mood on sleep latency for wives, but not husbands. In contrast, higher average levels of self-disclosure predicted less waking during the night for husbands, but not for wives.

Conclusion: The association between self-disclosure and sleep is one mechanism by which daily relationship functioning may influence health and well-being. Gender may play a role in how self-disclosure is associated with sleep.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Interaction of Wives' Daily Negative Mood and Self-disclosure on Wives' Sleep Latency
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Akerstedt T, Kecklund G, Axelsson J. Impaired sleep after bedtime stress and worries. Biological Psychology. 2007;76(3):170–3. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2007.07.010. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Åkerstedt T, Orsini N, Petersen H, Axelsson J, Lekander M, Kecklund G. Predicting sleep quality from stress and prior sleep–A study of day-to-day covariation across six weeks. Sleep Medicine. 2012;13:674–679. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2011.12.013. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bastien CH, Vallières A, Morin CM. Precipitating factors of insomnia. Behavioral sleep medicine. 2004;2(1):50–62. doi: 10.1207/s15402010bsm0201_5. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Brissette I, Cohen S. The contribution of individual differences in hostility to the associations between daily interpersonal conflict, affect, and sleep. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 2002;28(9):1265–74.
    1. Buysse DJ, Ancoli-Israel S, Edinger JD, Lichstein KL, Morin CM. Recommendations for a standard research assessment of insomnia. Sleep. 2006;29:1155–1173. - PubMed

Publication types