RUMINATION AND SLEEP: A GENDER-DIFFERENTIATED ANALYSIS

Abstract

Chronic insomnia disorder (CID) is often accompanied by pre-sleep cognitive arousal, notably ruminative thought, which has been linked to poorer sleep quality by both objective and subjective sleep indicators. Rumination has been consistently characterized as a cognitive symptom that has a greater prevalence among women compared to men, and possible explanations for this pathological discrepancy include the difference in social and cultural stressors experienced by women. We hypothesized that participants in the female population will have stronger correlations between rumination scores and characteristics indicative of sleep quality: sleep onset latency (SOL), N2 latency, and REM duration. Bivariate correlations and subsequent power analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between rumination scores and the aforementioned PSG sleep parameters measured during the sham condition of a greater TMS study. Results indicated that, despite the caveats of small sample size and other limiting factors, there was an overall higher correlation between sleep parameters and rumination scores in women than men. The hypothesis was mostly supported, though further research should include larger populations, more nights of sleep data, and further characterization of sleep stages. These findings suggest that women may be particularly vulnerable to the effects rumination has on sleep, highlighting a potential sex-specific avenue for treatment in sleep and mental health therapies.