Search

Stress exposure increases risk for depressive symptoms. However, there are substantial individual differences in affective responses to stress. High-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), a marker of vagally-mediated parasympathetic activity, has been conceptualized as a psychophysiological index of emotion regulation that may moderate individuals' responses to stress. Using a daily diary design, we tested whether individual differences in resting HF-HRV moderated the association between daily child-related stress and negative affect among a sample of 84 heterosexual couples with preschool-aged children. After controlling for participants' age, gender, socioeconomic status, employment status, and ethnicity, hierarchical linear modeling revealed that resting HF-HRV moderated both the between-person and within-person associations between self-reported child-related stress and daily negative affect. Between-person analyses indicated that the strength of the positive association between mean daily child stress and negative affect across the daily diary period increased with decreasing resting HF-HRV. Similarly, within-person analyses indicated that on days when participants reported more child-related stress than usual, the magnitude of the increase in negative affect on that day was inversely related to resting HF-HRV. Taken together, these findings suggest that lower resting HF-HRV may index vulnerability to stress-related disturbances in negative affect. This increased negative affective response to daily stress may be one pathway through which individuals with lower resting HF-HRV are at increased risk for depressive symptoms over time. • Low heart rate variability (HRV) is related to affective reactivity to daily stress. • HRV moderates the between -person associations between stress and negative affect. • HRV moderates the within -person associations between stress and negative affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Close relationships are an important social context in which emotional experiences, regulation, and coregulation unfold. This interpersonal emotion regulation process is likely intertwined with the self-regulatory capacities and social skills of each individual dyad member. This study aimed to examine whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a physiological marker related to self-regulation, moderates the impact of rumination, a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, on couples' conflict. A dyadic, longitudinal design examined the association among RSA, rumination, and couples' conflict in a sample of 83 cohabiting romantic partners raising young children. At baseline, rumination and RSA from each romantic partner were assessed. Couples' conflict was reported at 3 time points over the following 12 months. Actor-partner interdependence modeling examined the mutual contributions of each couple member's rumination to couples' conflict, as well as the moderating impact of RSA. Results indicated that rumination from both members of the dyad were independently associated with couples' conflict across the 12-month period. Furthermore, RSA moderated the association between one's partner's rumination and couples' conflict, such that high actor RSA attenuated the positive association between partner's rumination and couples' conflict. The findings highlight the interdependent nature of emotion regulation within close relationships, and the impact of RSA on interpersonal emotion regulation processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Disrupted sleep quality is one of the proposed mechanisms through which chronic stress may lead to depression. However, there exist significant individual differences in sleep reactivity, which is the extent to which one experiences sleep disturbances in response to stress.Purpose: The aim of the current study was to investigate whether low high-frequency heart rate variability (HRV), as a psychophysiological marker of poor emotional and physiological arousal regulation, predicts stress-related sleep disturbances associated with greater risk of depression symptoms.Methods: Using a chronic caregiving stress model, 125 mothers of adolescents with developmental disorders and 97 mothers of typically developing adolescents had their resting HRV and HRV reactivity recorded and completed a measure of depressive symptoms, as well as a 7 day sleep diary to assess their sleep quality. A moderated mediation model tested whether sleep quality mediated the association between chronic stress exposure and depressive symptoms and whether HRV moderated this mediation.Results: After controlling for participant age, body mass index, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and employment status, poor sleep quality mediated the association between chronic stress and depressive symptoms. Resting HRV moderated this indirect effect such that individuals with lower HRV were more likely to report poorer sleep quality in the context of chronic stressor exposure, which, in turn, was related to greater depressive symptoms.Conclusions: Lower HRV, a potential biomarker of increased sleep reactivity to stress, is associated with greater vulnerability to stress-related sleep disturbances, which, in turn, increases the risk for elevated depressive symptoms in response to chronic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]