Effects of Anxiety and Chronotype on Sleep Quality: Advantages of Evening Chronotype in the Post-Pandemic Era

Objective: Prior to the pandemic, all scientific evidence suggested that the evening chronotype is a risk factor for mental pathologies, while the morning chronotype is a protective factor. However, by exploring the effects of anxiety and chronotype on sleep quality in a post-pandemic, segmented by age, new evidence is presented that contradicts the traditional ones.Methods: This quantitative, exploratory, cross-sectional study included 2,253 participants, segmented into three age categories: <18 years, 18–23 years, and >23 years. Linear regression coefficients were calculated using weighted least squares, with a confidence level of 95% or greater (p<0.05) applied in all cases.Results: The highest levels of anxiety were found in men. In all cases, significant correlation and variance were found in sleep quality with respect to age and anxiety. The increase in poor sleep quality is explained by between 1.8% and 1.9% in subjects with anxiety and morning chronotype as age advances in post-pandemic.Conclusion: Anxiety, chronotype, and age significantly affect sleep quality. In the context of a pandemic, older subjects with a morning chronotype experience worse sleep quality. Specifically, under conditions of confinement and social isolation during a pandemic, morning chronotypes tend to have worse sleep quality compared to evening chronotypes, who may have an adaptive evolutionary advantage in such circumstances.