Sleep and stress processes shape executive function. Evidence suggests that poor sleep regulation can lead to significant impairments in executive functions. Psychological stress can also directly impact a variety of executive functions, often leading to declines, but may additionally reduce executive function via its negative impact on sleep. Rates of perceived stress and poor sleep have skyrocketed in recent years. As such, it has become increasingly important to understand how daily stress exposures and sleep processes modulate executive functions.
In a remote 21-day app-based study, 227 participants completed sleep and stress assessments three times a day. They also completed three executive functioning tasks at various timepoints across the 21-day study interval that assessed cognitive inhibition (Emotional Stroop task), cognitive flexibility (Trail Making Test A and B), and working memory (Backwards Digit Span).
Participants with consistent sleep/wake schedules reported fewer acute stress events when compared to those with inconsistent sleep schedules. Those with greater sleep/wake regularity also had faster responses to self-relevant negative probes (vs. general negative and neutral) in the Stroop task. Further, variability in sleep/wake timing and reported acute stress exposures across the 21-day study interval interacted to predict performance on the Emotional Stroop task. Specifically, as the number of acute stress events experienced across the 21-day interval increased, participants with more regular sleep schedules had slower overall response times on the Stroop. Higher acute stress exposures led to specific response time delays to neutral and self-relevant negative probes for those with high sleep/wake regularity. We found no impact of the number of acute stress events or stress intensities on working memory span, Stroop accuracy, or Trails response time.
These data may indicate that sleep/wake regularity preserves adaptive inhibitory control responses to cumulative acute stress.