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Many older adults experience chronic age-related stressors (e.g., life regrets or health problems) that are difficult to control and can disturb cortisol regulation. Self-compassion may buffer adverse effects of these stressful experiences on diurnal cortisol secretion in older adulthood. To examine whether self-compassion could benefit older adults’ cortisol secretion in the context of chronic and largely uncontrollable age-related stressors, 233 community-dwelling older adults reported their levels of self-compassion, age-related stressors (regret intensity, physical health problems, and functional disability), and relevant covariates. Diurnal cortisol was measured over 3 days and the average area-under-the-curve and slope were calculated. Higher levels of self-compassion were associated with lower daily cortisol levels among older adults who reported higher levels of regret intensity, physical health problems, or functional disability (βs < − .53, ps < .01), but not among their counterparts who reported lower levels of these age-related stressors (βs < .24, ps > .28). These results suggest that self-compassion may represent an important personal resource that could protect older adults from stress-related biological disturbances resulting from chronic and uncontrollable stressors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Recent evidence suggests that poor sleep is a potential pathway underlying the association between stressful experiences and the diurnal cortisol profile. However, existing findings are largely limited to adults. The present study examines whether poor sleep (duration, quality) mediates the relation between stressful experiences and the diurnal cortisol profile in children and adolescents. Children and adolescents ( N = 220, M age = 12.62) provided six saliva samples over two days to derive cortisol indices (bedtime, AUC AG , AUC TG , slope MAX ). Perceived stress, stressful life events, self-reported sleep duration, and sleep quality were measured. Using bootstrapping analyses, sleep quality mediated the relation between perceived stress and AUC TG ( R 2 = 0.10, F (7, 212) = 3.55 , p = .001; 95% BCI[0.09, 1.15]), as well as the relation between stressful life events and AUC TG ( R 2 = 0.11 , F (7, 212) = 3.69, p = .001; 95% BCI[0.40, 3.82]). These mediation models remained significant after adjusting for sleep duration, suggesting that poor sleep quality underlies the association between stressful experiences and the diurnal cortisol profile in children and adolescents. Longitudinal data combined with objectively-measured sleep is essential to further disentangle the complex association between sleep and stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]