Compassion Mediates Poor Sleep Quality and Mental Health Outcomes

Poor sleep quality has been associated with suboptimal physical and mental health outcomes. Self-compassion has been shown to protect against the effects of poor sleep quality and promote positive mental health benefits. However, the attenuating role of fears of compassion on these relationships is less well known. Herein we examine the mediating role of self-compassion and fears of compassion on the relationship between poor sleep quality and mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

Two independent community and student samples within either a university setting or online research setting participated in the research. This was a 2-sample cross-sectional survey design (N = 196, sample 1; N = 151, sample 2) which was conducted March–July 2019. In both samples, we examined self-compassion and fears of compassion as focal mediators of poor sleep quality and mental health outcomes.

Mediation analyses with non-parametric bootstrapping identified that self-compassion partially mediated the relationship between poor sleep quality and mental health outcomes (p < .001, R² = .20). Fears of self-compassion partially mediated the relationship between poor sleep quality and mental health wellbeing (p < .001, R² = .09) and fully mediated the relationship between poor sleep quality and psychological distress (p < .001, R² = .09).

We provide empirical evidence for how both self-compassion and fears of compassion can mediate the relationship between poor sleep quality, psychological distress, and mental health wellbeing. Our results provide important suggestions for future work in therapy, clinical studies of sleep, and the utility of the fears of compassion scale as a key psychometric instrument for use within the field.