Cited by 739Sleep and related disordersAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesObstructive Sleep Apnea Research

Role of Stress, Arousal, and Coping Skills in Primary Insomnia

Morin, Charles M., Rodrigue, Sylvie, Ivers, Hans·2003·Psychosomatic Medicine

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Although stress is often presumed to cause sleep disturbances, little research has documented the role of stressful life events in primary insomnia. The present study examined the relationship of stress and coping skills, and the potential mediating role of presleep arousal, to sleep patterns in good sleepers and insomnia sufferers. METHODS: The sample was composed of 67 participants (38 women, 29 men; mean age, 39.6 years), 40 individuals with insomnia and 27 good sleepers. Subjects completed prospective, daily measures of stressful events, presleep arousal, and sleep for 21 consecutive days. In addition, they completed several retrospective and global measures of depression, anxiety, stressful life events, and coping skills. RESULTS: The results showed that poor and good sleepers reported equivalent numbers of minor stressful life events. However, insomniacs rated both the impact of daily minor stressors and the intensity of major negative life events higher than did good sleepers. In addition, insomniacs perceived their lives as more stressful, relied more on emotion-oriented coping strategies, and reported greater presleep arousal than good sleepers. Prospective daily data showed significant relationships between daytime stress and nighttime sleep, but presleep arousal and coping skills played an important mediating role. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that the appraisal of stressors and the perceived lack of control over stressful events, rather than the number of stressful events per se, enhance the vulnerability to insomnia. Arousal and coping skills play an important mediating role between stress and sleep. The main implication of these results is that insomnia treatments should incorporate clinical methods designed to teach effective stress appraisal and coping skills.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1097/01.psy.0000030391.09558.a3

Cites

53 of 53 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Hyperarousal mechanisms, including sympathetic nervous system activation, contribute to the onset and perpetuation of insomnia.

    “because it is thought that hyperarousal mechanisms, including activation of the SNS, contribute to the onset and perpetuation of insomnia (Morin et al, 2003;Nofzinger et al, 2004;Bonnet and Arand, 2010)”

    From Sleep health: Reciprocal regulation of sleep and innate immunity (2017) · cites this paper as Morin et al, 2003

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Morin, C. M., Rodrigue, S., & Ivers, H.
Affiliations
Université Laval (CA)
Venue
Psychosomatic Medicine
Published
2003-03
Volume
65
Issue
2
Pages
259-267
ISSN
0033-3174 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2094372521
Cited by
739
References
53
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 49 · 2021: 50 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 37 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 34
FWCI
20.96
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Psychosomatic Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
U.S. Public Health Service (60413, 55469)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Obstructive Sleep Apnea Research
Keywords
primary insomnia, stress, coping strategies, life events, emotion-focused coping, perceived lack of control, sleep patterns, insomnia treatment
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Adult, Arousal, Female, Humans, Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Prospective Studies, Sleep, Stress, Psychological

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review