Reducing sleep inertia with reactive countermeasures: Impact of light and odor on alertness
Abstract
Background and rational: ‘Sleep inertia’ is associated with a feeling of grogginess, confusion, cognitive slowing, impaired memory processes, and increased vulnerability to errors on waking. In operational settings, personnel are required to perform safety-critical tasks and make important decisions immediately upon waking. Chronic sleep restriction and fatigue, which is common in operational, 24/7 environments, also worsens sleep inertia, creating a scenario where the level of cognitive impairment on waking can increase daily. Sleep inertia can therefore pose a safety risk and impact mission success. Countermeasures that reduce sleep inertia, reactive countermeasures, could be used to minimize the effect of sleep inertia on cognitive performance. These countermeasures need to be operationally relevant and easily deployable on ships, submarines and other high tempo workplace environments. Two types of reactive countermeasures that warrant further investigation are light – a core environmental signal for biological alertness, and odor – a novel alerting stimulus. Specific aims and objectives: The objective of this study is to investigate the following aims: Aim 1: Evaluate the impact of sleep inertia on cognitive performance and subjective sleepiness/fatigue, measuring overall impairment and time course, during the first hour after waking at 400h and 1600h, relative to background performance and active control group, across days of sleep restriction. Aim 2: Determine the effectiveness of reactive countermeasures (light, odor, and light+odor) to reduce the impact sleep inertia on cognitive performance and subjective sleepiness/fatigue, measuring overall impairment and time course, during the first hour after waking at 400h and 1600h, relative to background performance and active control group, across days of sleep restriction.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 2020
- Source ID
- N002442010004
Entities
People
- Siobhan Banks
Organizations
- United States Navy
- University of South Australia