The Effect of Caffeine on Sleep Deprivation

Caffeine increases energy, reduces sleepiness and can even improve mood to reduce procedural errors under conditions of sleep deprivation used for individuals who must perform high stakes procedures.

Caffeine inhibits the receptors for the chemical adenosine to reduce the tiredness and deprives sleep is used by some professionals to perform high stake procedures with insufficient sleep, like surgeons, pilots and police officers.

Researchers from Michigan State University's Sleep and Learning Lab conducted a study to assess the effectiveness of caffeine in counteracting the negative effects of sleep deprivation on cognition published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition..

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‘Caffeine has restricted effects on sleep deprivation.’

More than 275 participants consuming caffeine were asked to complete a simple attention task as well as a more challenging task that required completion of tasks in a specific order after a period of sleep deprivation.

The study reveals sleep deprivation impaired performance on both types of tasks and that having caffeine helped people successfully achieve the easier task and little effect on challenging task.

“Caffeine may improve the ability to stay awake and attend to a task, but it doesn't do much to prevent the sort of procedural errors that can cause things like medical mistakes and car accidents” said Kimberly Fenn, Psychology Associate Professor in Michigan State University.

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Though Caffeine increases energy, reduces sleepiness and can even improve mood to combat sleep deprivation, but higher-level tasks will be impaired. So, it is important to have sufficient amount of sleep for sound mind and body.

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Source-Eurekalert

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