Understanding Everyday Stress

Our primary outcome assessment is psychological stress responses in everyday life. To characterize subjective stress response, we utilize brief assessments of stress response indicators that encompass three aspects of the stress response in everyday life.

First, we assess change in subjective stress indicators from non-stressed resting state to immediately after experiencing a stressor (i.e., stress reactivity).

Second, we assess recovery in subjective stress indicators from stress following exposure as indexed by the degree to which the individual returns to their non-stressed resting state following stress reactivity.

Third, as stress responses may occur in isolation or repeatedly, we characterize the number of stress responses over time (the sum of observed stress response cycles in a 48-hr interval).

Daily number of waking minutes spent sitting, summarized as the daily average for each participant derived from an activPAL 4 accelerometer worn on the midline of the thigh.

Daily number of waking minutes spent standing, summarized as the daily average for each participant derived from an activPAL 4 accelerometer worn on the midline of the thigh.

Daily number of waking minutes spent performing light physical activity, summarized as the daily average for each participant derived from an activPAL 4 accelerometer worn on the midline of the thigh.

Daily number of waking minutes spent performing moderate of vigorous physical activity, summarized as the daily average for each participant derived from an activPAL 4 accelerometer worn on the midline of the thigh.

Total number of daily steps taken, summarized as the daily average for each participant derived from an activPAL 4 accelerometer worn on the midline of the thigh.

Daily number of transitions from sitting to standing, summarized as the daily average for each participant derived from an activPAL 4 accelerometer worn on the midline of the thigh.

Categorical variable denotes whether a participant achieved 21.5 minutes of MVPA on a given day (derived from a recommended weekly level MVPA is 150 minutes, transformed to compute a daily threshold of recommended MVPA).

Total number of minutes between sleep onset and final awakening; daily total sleep time (TST) scores will be summarized as the average TST (i.e., the daily average) for each participant.

Total number of minutes that a participant spent awake between sleep onset and final awakening; daily wake after sleep onset (WASO) scores will be summarized as the average WASO (i.e., the daily average) for each participant.

Daily proportion of Total Sleep Time spent in bed; daily sleep efficiency (SE) scores will be summarized as the average SE (i.e., the daily average) for each participant.

Categorical variable denotes whether a participant achieved a Total Sleep Time at least seven hours of sleep on a given day.

12-item instrument utilizing mood items derived from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and Circumplex Model of Affect. Items are scored from "not at all" (10) to "extremely" (50) and combined for a score for each subscale corresponding to high and low arousal positive and negative affect (range is 30-150 on each subscale).

High activation positive subscale: Higher scores indicate greater levels of high activation positive affect (i.e., happy, enthusiastic, excited). Low activation positive subscale: Higher scores indicate greater levels of low activation positive affect (i.e., relaxed, content, calm). High activation negative subscale: Higher scores indicate greater levels of high activation negative affect (i.e., anxious, annoyed, upset). Low activation negative subscale: Higher scores indicate greater levels of low activation negative affect (i.e., bored, sad, sluggish).

Subjective report of recent stress - 6 items assessing presence of stress in past 7 days, including global rating of overall stress, frequency, duration, stressor severity, control over the stressor, predictability, current impact of stress, thoughts about the stressor, reactivity and recovery from the stressor, and ease of recovery following the stress. Higher scores indicate higher level of recent stress.

Assessed by the Perceived Stress Scale; 14 items assessing stress in past 7 days. Items scored from "never" (10) to "very often" (50). Yields total score with all items averaged together. Minimum possible score of 10 and a maximum possible score of 50. Higher scores indicate greater levels of perceived stress

Perseverative cognitions measured by 5 items scored from "not at all" (0) to "very much" (100). Yields a total score reflecting the average across all items, with a range of 0-100. Higher scores reflect greater degree of perseverative cognition related to stressful topics.

General stress mindset as measured by the 8-item Stress Mindset Measure. Items scored in one-unit increments with values ranging from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree"). The scale yields a total score with all items averaged together, with a range of 1 to 5. Higher scores represent the mindset that stress is enhancing.

Social support as measured by 8-items from the Social Support Questionnaire.

This scale has 8 items that reflect two sub-scales of 4 items each. Four items enumerate the number of people that fit the question (e.g., "In the past 30 days, how many people could you really count on to help you feel more relaxed when you were under pressure or tense?") with options ranging from 0 to 10. The remaining four items assess reported satisfaction with social support and are scored from "very dissatisfied" (0) to "very satisfied" (100). Subscale scores calculated by averaging the four-item blocks separately:

Number subscale: higher scores indicate a greater number of people available to provide social support, with a range of 0 to 10.

Satisfaction subscale: higher scores indicate greater levels of availability and/or satisfaction with the social support received from others, with a range of 0 to 100.

Insomnia symptom severity as measured using the 7-item Insomnia Severity Index.

Items assessing difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and problems waking too early assessed on a scale of 0 to 4 ("none", "mild", "moderate", "severe", "very severe") with higher values indicating worse insomnia symptoms.

Additional items assess satisfaction with sleep patterns, how noticeable sleep problems are to others, amount of worry or distress about sleep problems, and interference with daily life.

Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index is comprised of items that assess overall sleep quality (range "very good" to "very bad"), typical bedtime, minutes to fall asleep, wake time, total sleep time (in hours), feeling rested ("always" to "never"), frequency of medication use for sleep ("not during the last month", "less than once a week", "once or twice a week", "three or more times a week"), causes of sleep problems, and bed sharing. Each item is scored 0-3 and are used to generate a total score ranging from 0 (good sleep) to 21 (impaired sleep).

Multiple aspects of reported physical activity behavior (walking, moderate activity, vigorous activity, sedentary time, and total activity) are assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire - Short Form. Units of measure are median metabolic equivalent of task (MET) minutes.

Walking (2 items; range 0 to 33264). Higher values reflect greater durations of time reported spent walking.

Moderate intensity activity (2 items; range 0 to 40320). Higher values reflect greater moderate-intensity physical activity.

Vigorous intensity activity (2 items; range 0 to 80640). Higher values reflect greater vigorous-intensity physical activity.

Total activity (6 items; range 0 to 80640). Total METs = walking METs + moderate-intensity METs + vigorous-intensity METs. Higher values reflect greater intensity-based physical activity.

Sedentary time (2 items; range 0 to 1440). Units of measure are minutes. Higher values reflect greater sedentary time.