Objective <p>This study investigates how negative life events affect sleep quality among Chinese college students, focusing on the sequential roles of coping styles (positive and negative) and rumination as linking mechanisms.</p> Methods <p>We recruited 572 college students through an online survey. Participants completed validated measures of negative life events, trait coping styles, rumination, and sleep quality. To test our hypothesized pathways, we conducted correlation and regression analyses, followed by bootstrapped serial mediation modeling using the PROCESS Macro (Model 6).</p> Results <p>Negative life events were directly associated with poorer sleep. Rumination significantly mediated this relationship, as did positive coping—where higher positive coping was linked to better sleep. More importantly, we identified two significant chain pathways: (1) negative life events led to reduced positive coping, which in turn increased rumination and worsened sleep; and (2) negative life events led to increased negative coping, which likewise heightened rumination and impaired sleep. In contrast, negative coping alone did not mediate the life-events–sleep link independently.</p> Conclusion <p>Our findings reveal that life events influence sleep through intertwined coping and rumination pathways. Adaptive coping protects sleep directly, whereas maladaptive coping exacerbates sleep disturbance mainly by amplifying rumination. These results suggest that interventions aimed at improving sleep in this population should simultaneously promote flexible coping and reduce repetitive negative thinking.</p>