| Onset of psychological disorders typically occurs during adolescence, making this a vulnerable
developmental period and highlighting the need to examine emotion regulation and factors that
can hinder it among adolescents, such as poor sleep and impairments in executive functioning.
Some research demonstrates a link between poor sleep and executive functioning impairments,
suggesting sleep difficulties may indirectly predict poor emotion regulation through associations
with executive functioning. The present study sought to contribute to understanding of executive
functioning processes in relation to sleep and emotion regulation using an objective measure of
sleep and a global scale of emotion regulation difficulties in adolescent athletes. Sixty-four
athletes aged 11-15 completed baseline assessments of sleep, executive functioning, and emotion
regulation across two appointments. Despite observations of significant relationships between
poor sleep, costs to executive functioning, and emotion regulation difficulties in prior literature,
these findings were not replicated in the current investigation. Lack of findings are postulated to
be due to a number of factors, including low statistical power, unique assessment of emotion
regulation, and nature of the current sample, among whom few concerns of sleep or emotion
regulation difficulties were observed. As the sample solely included healthy young athletes,
findings may provide some limited support for participation in extracurricular activities as a
protective factor against impairments in processes that predict emotion dysregulation and
subsequent development of psychopathology. Future research is recommended to examine these
processes among youth who are at risk for or experience symptoms of psychopathology.
Key words: adolescence, emotion regulation, executive functioning, sleep |