Abstract
Introduction
Many workers and students experience regular sleep deprivation and daytime sleepiness when they are expected to be performing at their best. The purpose of the current research was to investigate the potential effect of short-term bright green light exposure on daytime performance and sleepiness in partially sleep-deprived persons.
Methods
Participants were 30 students (19.4±0.89 years; 20 females). On Day 1, participants were loaned a Fitbit to provide an objective measure of activity/sleep and were instructed to sleep no more than 5 hours that night. On Day 2, participants provided information on their sleep time for the previous night and were randomly assigned to a bright light condition (bright green light, 381 Lux) or a standard light condition (control condition, indoor florescent light, 139 Lux). They completed a simple reaction time task, the Arrow Flankers task to measure cognitive inhibition, and the Stanford Sleepiness Scale during three testing periods (baseline, after 20 minutes of light exposure, and after 60 minutes of light exposure). Between the testing periods, participants read a non-fiction book while exposed to their respective light condition. At the end of the study, participants returned their FitBit.
Results
The Fitbit and self-report sleep data indicated that participants slept 4.9 hours the night between Day 1 and Day 2. Mixed 2 (light condition) x 3 (testing period) ANOVAs indicated that the bright green light condition resulted in a significant decrease in reaction time on the Flankers task but had no significant effect on simple reaction time or subjective sleepiness.
Conclusion
The current findings suggest that 60 minutes of bright green light exposure could improve performance on a cognitive inhibition task. This suggests that bright green light exposure could be a useful countermeasure for cognitive performance decrements in settings where sleep deprivation is common.
Support
None to report.
Dose oxidative stress increase during short term sleep deprivation in children patients?
