Understand your body’s needs and try to get as much rest as possible, when needed.” A stable work-life balance can create better and safer outcomes for all. ![]() “The importance of adequate sleep is especially relevant for individuals in high-functioning environments who often have to work long hours, such as doctors and truck drivers. Anthony Puopolo, chief medical officer of the telemedicine company RexMD, told Healthline. ![]() “Caffeine can help you get through a midday slump, but it isn’t a substitute for a good night’s rest,” Dr. It also underlines the need for essential workers to prioritize sleep, Fenn said. The findings support the theory that sleep deprivation impairs what’s known as “vigilant attention,” eroding the ability to complete cognitive tasks that require attention. They then consumed either a placebo or 200 milligrams (mg) of caffeine, approximately the amount in one to two cups of coffee (depending on the size of the cup and the strength of the coffee). Participants in the study either slept normally at home or were kept awake in a lab overnight. A good rule to follow is that you should not attempt any task while sleep deprived that you would not (or should not) attempt while intoxicated, irrespective of caffeine.” “So I would caution against doing anything like driving or operating heavy machinery or performing any task in which an error could be significant. “I think the best way to conceptualize this is that one would not want to attempt any task that has consequences while sleep deprived,” said Fenn. She also has some guideposts on what kind of tasks should be avoided if you’re short on sleep. For example, many medical professionals, such as surgeons, need to work long hours throughout the night.” “We are interested in procedural errors because they can be quite dangerous. “Caffeine may be able to help you stay awake and pay attention to a task, but it does not help to prevent errors,” she said. “However, it had little effect on performance on the place-keeping task for most participants.”įenn told Healthline that there is a simple takeaway from the study. ![]() “We found that sleep deprivation impaired performance on both types of tasks and that having caffeine helped people successfully achieve the easier task,” said Kimberly Fenn, PhD, an associate professor in the department of psychology at Michigan State University, in a press release. The researchers noted that caffeine did help in some instances. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, a group of participants subjected to a night of sleep deprivation was asked to complete a reaction time test as well as a more complex “place-keeping” test, which required the completion of a series of tasks in a specific order without skipping or repeating any steps.
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