Insufficient sleep, even without extended wakefulness, leads to performance impairments

Indigophoton · May 21, 2018

Presumably relevant to some PWME given the sleep issues.

Millions of individuals obtain insufficient sleep on a daily basis, which can lead to impaired performance and other adverse physiological outcomes. To what extent these impairments are caused by the short sleep duration or corresponding extended wakefulness was unknown. A team of researchers from BWH have isolated the impacts of short sleep and extended wakefulness on vigilant performance decline and their results are published in PNAS.

"If somebody is routinely awake for more than 18 hours daily, then they are also routinely sleeping for less than six hours daily.

Therefore, it was unknown whether any decline in vigilance or other functions was due to the extended wakefulness or restricted sleep," said senior author Elizabeth B. Klerman, MD, Ph.D., from the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Department of Medicine at BWH. "We found that chronic short sleep duration, even without extended wakefulness, resulted in vigilant performance impairments."
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The article, https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-insufficient-impairments.html

Significance
Millions of individuals obtain insufficient sleep on a daily basis, which leads to impaired performance. Whether these decrements are caused by short sleep duration or extended wakefulness is unknown. In this study, healthy volunteers were randomized into either a chronically sleep-restricted or control protocol while living on a 20-h “day,” thus enabling short sleep without extended wakefulness. We demonstrate that chronic insufficient sleep, even without extended wakefulness, leads to neurobehavioral performance decrements at all times of the day, even when the circadian system is promoting arousal. These findings have implications for the understanding of basic physiology, the substantial population who chronically obtains insufficient sleep, and all of us who depend on sleep-restricted individuals working in safety-sensitive occupations.

Abstract
Millions of individuals routinely remain awake for more than 18 h daily, which causes performance decrements. It is unknown if these functional impairments are the result of that extended wakefulness or from the associated shortened sleep durations. We therefore examined changes in objective reaction time performance and subjective alertness in a 32-d inpatient protocol in which participants were scheduled to wakefulness durations below 16 h while on a 20-h “day,” with randomization into standard sleep:wake ratio (1:2) or chronic sleep restriction (CSR) ratio (1:3.3) conditions. This protocol allowed determination of the contribution of sleep deficiency independent of extended wakefulness, since individual episodes of wakefulness in the CSR condition were only 15.33 h in duration (less than the usual 16 h of wakefulness in a 24-h day) and sleep episodes were 4.67 h in duration each cycle. We found that chronic short sleep duration, even without extended wakefulness, doubled neurobehavioral reaction time performance and increased lapses of attention fivefold, yet did not uniformly decrease self-reported alertness. Further, these impairments in neurobehavioral performance were worsened during the circadian night and were not recovered during the circadian day, indicating that the deleterious effect from the homeostatic buildup of CSR is expressed even during the circadian promotion of daytime arousal. These findings reveal a fundamental aspect of human biology: Chronic insufficient sleep duration equivalent to 5.6 h of sleep opportunity per 24 h impairs neurobehavioral performance and self-assessment of alertness, even without extended wakefulness.
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The paper, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/05/15/1706694115

alktipping · May 22, 2018

this reminds me of studies in the late seventies early eighties that led to restricting the hours of professional drivers and the installation of tachographs in trucks/lorries . I wonder how many of the recent papers are just a rehash of older ideas studies .

Little Bluestem · May 28, 2018

I am in bed for nine hours a night and "unawake" for 6 or more hours, but my sleep quality is so poor that I don't think my brain is getting the rest that it should.

Squeezy · Jun 1, 2018

@Little Bluestem Me too. I like your word, "unawake". I really can't honour much of what I experience nightly with the name "sleep" either.

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Insufficient sleep, even without extended wakefulness, leads to performance impairments

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