Time spent in physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep: Associations with self-rated sleep quality in middle-aged and older adults

Objectives: We examined the associations of estimated allocations of time spent in physical activity, seden-tary behavior and sleep with self-rated sleep quality.Methods: Between 2011 and 2016, 1918 participants (mean age 71 +/- 9 years, 51% women) from the popula-tion-based Rotterdam Study were included. Durations of light physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physi-cal activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep were assessed by accelerometry, self-rated sleep quality with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Associations were assessed with compositional isotemporal substitution analyses. Results: Spending 30 minutes more in sedentary behavior (adjusted mean difference in PSQI score: 0.21, 95% confidence interval [0.15; 0.28] or in light physical activity (adjusted mean difference in PSQI score: 0.25 [0.03; 0.46], and 30 minutes less in sleep, was associated with poorer sleep quality.Conclusions: Our findings suggest reducing sedentary behavior and increasing sleep duration might be a potential intervention target to improve sleep quality in this population of middle-aged and older adults.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of National Sleep Foundation. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Automated summary

This study examined the associations between estimated allocations of time spent in physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep, and self-rated sleep quality. The findings suggest that reducing sedentary behavior and increasing sleep duration might be potential intervention targets to improve sleep quality in middle-aged and older adults.