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Emotional reactivity in insomnia is affected both subjectively and on a physiological level for negative emotional material, but little is known about reactions to positive stimuli. We here investigated whether in younger adult insomnia patients, presentation of short humorous films would lead to heart rate decreases during and after film viewing, as compared to heart rate changes when falling asleep. Investigating 20 participants with DSM‐5‐diagnosed insomnia and 18 participants without insomnia, we found that heart rate decreased when falling asleep, increased when watching humorous films and returned to normal values afterwards for all participants. Film‐related heart rate increases were strongly related to humour ratings of the films. No differences were found between those with and without insomnia on subjective ratings of the films, film‐related heart rate changes or when falling asleep. We conclude that the experience of positive daily life stimuli in younger adults is not affected by insomnia in our study, despite insomnia having a known more profound effect on negative stimuli. Future studies exploring insomnia‐related autonomous nervous system responses combining different neurophysiological modalities should confirm our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperarousal is a 24-h state of elevated cognitive and physiological activation, and is a core feature of insomnia. The extent to which sleep quality is affected by stressful events--so-called sleep reactivity--is a vulnerability factor for developing insomnia. Given the increasing prevalence of insomnia with age, we aimed to investigate how hyperarousal and sleep reactivity were related to insomnia severity in different adult age groups. Data were derived from a large cohort study investigating the natural history of insomnia in a population-based sample (n = 1693). Baseline data of the Arousal Predisposition Scale (APS) and Ford Insomnia Response to Stress Test (FIRST) were examined across age and sleep/insomnia subgroups: 25-35 (n = 448), 35-45 (n = 528), and 45-55 year olds (n = 717); good sleepers (n = 931), individuals with insomnia symptoms (n = 450), and individuals with an insomnia syndrome (n = 312). Results from factorial analyses of variance (ANOVA) showed that APS scores decreased with increasing age, but increased with more severe sleep problems. FIRST scores were not significantly different across age groups, but showed the same strong increase as a function of sleep problem severity. The findings indicate that though arousal predisposition and sleep reactivity increase with more severe sleep problems, only arousal decreases with age. How arousing events affect an individual during daytime thus decreases with age, but how this arousal disrupts sleep is equivalent across different adult age groups. The main implication of these findings is that treatment of insomnia could be adapted for different age groups and take into consideration vulnerability factors such as hyperarousal and stress reactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Virtual reality and simulation tools enable us to assess daytime functioning in environments that simulate real life as close as possible. Simulator sickness, however, poses a problem in the application of these tools, and has been related to pre‐existing health problems. How sleep problems contribute to simulator sickness has not yet been investigated. In the current study, 20 female chronic insomnia patients and 32 female age‐matched controls drove in a driving simulator covering realistic city, country and highway scenes. Fifty percent of the insomnia patients as opposed to 12.5% of controls reported excessive simulator sickness leading to experiment withdrawal. In the remaining participants, patients with insomnia showed overall increased levels of oculomotor symptoms even before driving, while nausea symptoms further increased after driving. These results, as well as the realistic simulation paradigm developed, give more insight on how vestibular and oculomotor functions as well as interoceptive functions are affected in insomnia. Importantly, our results have direct implications for both the actual driving experience and the wider context of deploying simulation techniques to mimic real life functioning, in particular in those professions often exposed to sleep problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]