Caffeine is a common theme in this blog but its popularity entitles it to some headline space on a regular basis. The latest research finds that if sleep is restricted to just 5 hours a night, any caffeine use after that time has little impact on mental performance and alertness. It does show that compared to the placebo, there is a slight improvement in Psychomotor Vigilance Task performance in the first two days, but not for the last three days of sleep restriction.
The research was first presented in the journal ‘Sleep’ and then will be discussed at the Denver conference, SLEEP 2016 which is the 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.
The research group involved 48 healthy individuals who participated in a double blind, placebo-controlled study. Their sleep was restricted to five hours of time in bed for a total of five days. Participants were administered either 200 mg of caffeine or a placebo twice daily. A range of cognitive tasks was administered hourly during the wake periods and included a 10-minute PVT, Profile of Mood States (POMS), and the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS). A modified Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (mMWT) was administered six times per day.
American Academy of Sleep Medicine. (2016, June 13). Caffeine has little to no benefit after 3 nights of sleep restriction: New study shows caffeine is not sufficient to prevent performance decline long term. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 28, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160613130813.htm
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