Distress, emotional well‐being, and sleep quality in daily life: A dual‐continuum perspective

Abstract

We examined whether daily distress and emotional well‐being form related but distinguishable dimensions, as suggested by a dual‐continuum perspective, and how they relate to perceived sleep quality. Evening diaries assessed these variables in 831 university students over 14 days. Emotional well‐being comprised positive affect and life satisfaction, whereas distress comprised emotional exhaustion, depressed affect, anxiety, and negative affect. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis supported two correlated within‐person higher order factors over a single higher order factor, with a factor correlation of −.501. A Bayesian multilevel vector autoregressive model of order 1 (VAR(1)) estimated adjacent‐day associations. Higher‐than‐usual distress predicted lower subsequent emotional well‐being ( β  = −.032, 95% credible interval [CrI] [−.053, −.012]). Distress predicted poorer perceived quality of the subsequent sleep episode ( β  = −.057, 95% CrI [−.078, −.037]), and sleep quality reported at the preceding diary occasion predicted lower current distress ( β  = −.024, 95% CrI [−.043, −.004]) and higher emotional well‐being ( β  = .021, 95% CrI [.001, .040]). The paths from emotional well‐being to subsequent distress and sleep quality had 95% CrIs that included zero. The within‐person measurement structure is consistent with a dual‐continuum perspective on daily distress and emotional well‐being.