Cognitive effects of multi-night adolescent sleep restriction: current data and future possibilities

Publication date: June 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 33Author(s): June C Lo, Michael WL CheeAdolescents throughout the world do not obtain adequate sleep. A recent proliferation of experimental and quasi-experimental studies on teens concur in finding that multiple successive nights of restricted sleep can impair multiple cognitive functions. These effects cumulate over successive nights, may not achieve complete restitution after weekend recovery sleep, and may even be compounded by re-exposure to sleep restriction. An hour-long afternoon nap reduces sleepiness and improves vigilance, memory encoding and mood without interfering with nocturnal sleep when the latter is deficient. The very technologies that disrupt sleep can be used to improve it by providing novel avenues to personalize sleep recommendations by monitoring the effects of deficient sleep duration, quality, regularity and continuity.
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research