Analyzing the Emotional Consequences of Normal Sleep Fluctuations: A Multiverse Investigation using Experience Sampling Data

How much we sleep at night is believed to impact next-day emotional experiences. Yet, theexisting research is encumbered by methodological limitations. To address this issue we harnessedexperience sampling data (68,232 observations across 10,905 days) from 1,415 Belgianparticipants to examine whether normal variations in sleep duration linearly or nonlinearlyinfluence next-day fatigue, stress, happiness, anxiety, despondence, and calmness. We tested8,960 models as part of a multiverse analyses in this non-pre-registered study. Findings indicateeven small increases in sleep duration positively associate with next day emotional experiences,that effects are generally stronger in the period after waking relative to later in the day, and thateffect magnitudes differ markedly across emotions. Analyses indicating some sleep-emotioneffects are stronger at higher absolute sleep amounts should be cautiously interpreted given thisstudy’s observational and exploratory nature.