Effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive and motor performance as well as mood

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Sleep deprivation is increasingly recognized as a worldwide public health concern as researchers found that lack of sleep impairs human functioning[2]. The majority of individuals was found to be sleep deprived as they are forced to restrain their sleeping hours to compensate increasing working hours, especially individuals whose professions’ is in line with healthcare, security and transportation sectors as they are often required to be on duty even at night [1]. Regardless of whether the individual was totally or partially sleep deprived, it was proven that both had adverse effects on the human body[3]. Further studies revealed that sleep deprivation affected ones’ cognitive and motor performance as well as mood[2]. One of the effects of sleep deprivation is impairment of cognitive performance[1,2,3]. Sleep deprivation interferes with the frontal lobes of the brain causing attention lapses and momentary absent-mindedness, resulting in decreased attention and attentiveness[1,2]. Findings confirmed that subjects performed worse on vigilance tasks that were long, simple and monotonous[1]. A possible explanation on why subjects were more error prone in repetitive tasks could be due to a decline in reaction time and accuracy as prolong wakefulness continued[3]. Another important finding was that lack of sleep disrupts subjects’ reasoning ability and creativity[1]. Although some research indicates that sleep deprivation of 45 hours or less is sufficient to cause these effects on cognitive performance, some researchers argue that wakefulness of 46 hours or less is too little to exhibit a significant effect[2]. Therefore, further work is required to establish this[1,2,3]. Not only does lack of sleep impairs cognitive performance, studi... ... middle of paper ... ...mple of participants, the findings clearly suggest that sleep deprivation affects an individual’s cognitive and motor performance as well as mood[1,2,3]. It can be concluded that overall performance of a sleep deprived individual is worse than those who had sufficient rest[3]. However, further research needs to be done to establish a greater degree of accuracy and understanding on this matter[1,2,3]. Works Cited 1. Alhola P, Polo-Kantola P. Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment. 2007; 3(5):553-567. 2. Huffcutt AI, Pilcher JJ. Effects of sleep deprivation on performance: a meta-analysis. Sleep. 1996; 19(4):318-326. 3. Maddox WT, Glass BD, Wolosin SM, Savarie ZR, Bowen C, Matthews MD, Schnyer DM. The effects of sleep deprivation on information-integration categorization performance. Sleep. 2009; 32(11):1439-1448

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