Sleep deprivation affects everything from how much salt a baker puts in their recipes, to how well surgeons perform surgeries.
At Michigan State University, researches conducted a controlled experiment to study the effect of sleep deprivation on humans. It has been regarded as the largest experiment on sleep deprivation ever done.
What makes this study unique is its focus on how a lack of sleep impacts specific tasks. The effects of sleep deprivation were not clear until this study quantified its impact on a large scale. Researchers looked to show how detrimental sleep is in our daily lives.
“Every day, approximately 11 sponges are left inside of patients who have undergone surgery”. The study found that an alarmingly large amount of surgeons operate on very little sleep. This can and does lead to detrimental mistakes.
Here is how the researchers performed this study:
Method:
234 people were brought into a lab and were made to perform specific, multi-step tasks. At midnight, half went home to go to bed and the other half stayed up all night. The following day, the groups were asked to perform the same tasks again.
Results:
The results showed incredibly significant increases in the number of errors found in the sleep deprived group. While all the participants met the performance criteria during the first night, Fenn says “roughly 15 percent of participants in the sleep-deprived group failed in the morning, compared to 1 percent of those who slept”. It was also observed that participants in the sleep deprived group showed an increase in errors associated with using memory the following morning.
This study only confirms how important proper sleep is. Not only is it the basis of a healthy and productive life, a lack of sleep not only hurts, but can hurt those around us.
For more information:
Michigan State University. "How sleep deprivation hinders memory." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 October 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181002114027.htm>