A Polish study found that, after a week-long recovery from sleep deprivation, only reaction speed is restored to baseline levels while other functions are still lacking.
The negative impacts of sleep deficiency are well known, and include deficits in attention and memory, increased risk of car accidents, heart problems, and other medical issues. However, while some research has addressed recovery after chronic sleep deprivation, it has been unclear how much time is needed to fully recover from prolonged periods of deficient sleep.
To shed more light on this topic, Jeremi Ochab of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and colleagues conducted a small study, published in PLOS ONE, with several healthy adults who underwent 10 days of purposeful sleep restriction followed by seven recovery days with unrestricted sleep. Participants completed the study in their normal day-to-day environments, wearing wrist sensors to track sleep and activity. Daily electroencephalography (EEG) monitored their brain activity, and they answered daily questions (Stroop tasks) to measure reaction times and accuracy.
After 7 days of recovery, the participants had not yet returned to their baseline performance on most measures of functioning. These included several EEG measures of brain activity, rest-versus-activity patterns captured by wrist sensors, and accuracy on Stroop tasks. Only their reaction times had recovered to baseline levels.
While the researchers note that it is difficult to compare these results with other studies that employed different methods, the findings contribute new insights into recovery from chronic sleep loss. Future research could include more participants, investigate longer recovery periods, and determine in what order different functions return to normal.
The authors added: “The investigation of the recovery process following an extended period of sleep restriction reveal that the differences in behavioural, motor, and neurophysiological responses to both sleep loss and recovery.”
Source: SciTech Daily
