UC Irvine

Sleep is crucial for emotional and physiological health by allowing for restorative processes to occur. Disruption of sleep, such as that caused by stress, can result in adverse health outcomes. Given the importance of stress levels and sleep for health, disparities present are troubling and have not been the focus of studies until recently. In mainly middle-age and older adult samples, ethnic minorities and those with lower socioeconomic status experience poorer sleep and higher stress. However, fewer studies with young adult samples exist. One form of stress these groups report higher incidences of is that caused by perceived judgment. Given sleep’s benefit on other forms of stress, the stress stemming from the feeling of being judged by others may also be reduced. My first two studies explore possible factors influencing sleep and stress. First, I examine whether the impact of stress on sleep is influenced by factors such as Ethnicity. Next, I explore whether environment, in the form of feelings of neighborhood safety, influences sleep and stress levels. My final study now looks at the beneficial effects of sleep with the hypothesis that sleep, through emotional regulation, can buffer the negative effects of being judged by a peer in a lab-setting.