Discrimination, sleep, and physical health: Moderation by respiratory sinus arrythmia reactivity

Discrimination (unfair treatment due to group membership) is relatively common among adolescents and has been linked to poor sleep and physical health. Individual differences in physiological functioning may moderate these associations. A sample of 323 youth (48% boys, 52% girls; 58.5% White, 40.9% Black, M_age = 17.38 years, SD = 10.18 months) participated. Adolescents reported on discrimination and health, wore actigraphs to measure sleep, and came to the laboratory to assess respiratory sinus arrythmia reactivity (RSA-R) to two stressful tasks. Results indicate that discrimination was directly associated with health. Furthermore, discrimination interacted with RSA-R to predict sleep and health. Discrimination was related to more sleep activity and poorer health when RSA increased relative to baseline (augmentation), and better sleep quality (higher efficiency, fewer long wake episodes), when RSA decreased relative to baseline (suppression). Findings support the importance of examining physiological regulation as a protective/vulnerability factor when attempting to explicate relations between discrimination and health.