Self-control or social control - what determines sleep hygiene in bed-sharing couples?

Objectives: To investigate intimate partners' impact on sleep hygiene with focus on the temporal dimension and differential predictors of sleep hygiene in co-sleepers and individual sleepers.

Material And Methods: Habitual co-sleepers and individual sleepers (n=102) completed a cross-sectional, self-report, in-lab, digital survey on sleep hygiene, habitual sleeping arrangement, self-control, depressiveness, and sociodemographic parameters.

Results: The relationship between sleeping arrangement and sleep hygiene in co-sleepers was time-dependent with an initial steep incline and a subsequent plateau at approximately one year of co-sleeping routine. Co-sleepers with more than one year of unaltered sleeping arrangement had significantly better sleep hygiene than co-sleepers with less than one-year or individual sleepers. More than one-year continuity of the sleeping arrangement moreover robustly predicted sleep hygiene in co-sleepers whereas self-control was the dominant predictor in individual sleepers.

Conclusion: Amongst others, our findings support the idea that insomnia treatment could be improved by becoming sensitive to the habitual sleeping arrangement.