Health Habits and Sleep Quality

Sleep quality is affected by, and affects, several factors in an individual’s everyday life. The activities one engages in throughout the day are thought to have a significant relationship with sleep quality and how sleep affects them. In the United States’ modern society, adults and adolescents are regularly getting less sleep than they need to properly function; this could be due to several components of their lives, such as current sleep conditions (insomnia, apnea, paralysis, etc.), mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, etc.), poor sleep environments, excessive stress, or the activities they engage in during the waking hours (physical activity, eating habits, technology use, etc.). On the other hand, the level of sleep quality one experiences has been shown to influence their executive function, physical limits, and emotional health both immediately and over time. This study focuses on the impact of physical activity (walking, strength training, etc.) and screen time (hours spent on devices such as a phone, laptop, TV, etc.) on sleep quality (hours slept, ability to fall asleep and stay asleep, etc.) and hypothesizes that the more quality physical activity one engages in, the better their sleep quality, and that the more screen time one has before bed, the worse their sleep quality. Understanding the effects of these habits on sleep quality can help push the narrative for how one should prioritize sleep health in their life. Data is currently being collected through an online survey for students at Murray State University. The information provided by this study can also aid psychologists in approaching physiological processes, in particular sleep, as a holistic concept, being impacted not only by one’s mental state, but also by one's sustained environment and behaviors for both long-term and short-term health. This study has been approved by the IRB and will be presented at Scholars Week in the fall of 2026. Keywords: Sleep quality, sleep health, physical activity, screen time