Too long, too short, or too variable? sleep intraindividual variability and its associations with perceived sleep quality and mood in adolescents during naturalistically unconstrained sleep

Abstract

Introduction: Research has extensively examined the relationship between adolescents' mental health and average sleep duration/quality. Using rigorous methodology, this study characterized adolescents' objective sleep intraindividual variability (IIV) and examined its role on mood beyond the effects of their respective individual mean (IIM) values. Aims and Methods: One hundred forty-six community-dwelling adolescents (47.3% male) aged 16.2 ± 1.0 (M ± SD) years wore an actigraph that assessed bedtime, risetime, time-in-bed (TIB), and sleep onset latency (SOL) throughout a 15-day vacation with relatively unconstrained sleep opportunity. Self-report sleep quality (SSQ), negative mood (MOOD), a..