Recover Fast, Rise Bright : Evening Recovery Processes Stimulate Next-Morning Cognitive Performance

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Even though recovery was conceptualized as a process, research has rarely adopted a true process perspective focusing on actual recovery trajectories. To address this gap, we investigate psychological (serenity), physiological (heart rate variability; HRV), and psychosomatic (fatigue) recovery trajectories in the evening after work. Building upon the Allostatic Load Model, we further explore the effects of recovery trajectories on next-morning energy and cognitive performance. In a diary study, 64 employees provided hourly self-report assessments of serenity and fatigue, and continuous physiological recordings of heart rate variability (HRV) in the evenings across three workdays. Before the beginning of the next workday, participants reported their current energy and completed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) to evaluate their cognitive performance (cognitive inhibition). Latent growth curve models revealed a positive linear serenity trajectory and U-shaped HRV and fatigue trajectories in the evening after work. Highlighting the importance of effective evening recovery, the slopes of the HRV and fatigue trajectories showed significant associations with next-morning cognitive performance, though not with energy levels. In contrast, no such associations were observed for serenity trajectories. These findings enhance our understanding of temporal dynamics in multidimensional after-work recovery, offering new targets for intervention strategies.