Characterizing Recovery of Sleep after Four Successive Night Shifts

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to characterize the recovery pattern of sleep following simulated, four successive night shifts in ten healthy men (22.9 ± 3.2 yr). Poor sleep was defined as sleep efficiency of 80% or lower as determined actigraphically. The results showed that four (rapid, slow, pseudo, and incomplete) patterns of sleep recovery were observed over three recovery sleep periods. The rapid and slow recovery pattern represented immediate and slow return to baseline level prior to the nightshifts, respectively. The pseudo recovery pattern demonstrated poor sleep at the 3rd recovery sleep period, despite transient recovery at the 2nd sleep period. The incomplete recovery pattern was characterized by consistently poorer sleep during the entire recovery period. The correlation analysis indicated that sleep habits (bed time and variation of wake time) prior to the experiment were significantly related to the recovery patterns, rather than performance and alertness during the night shifts.

Weekend sleep intervention for workers with habitually short sleep periods

“…In short, the standard deviation of reaction times and lapses was 2 or 3 times larger on Thursday after the intervention than on Monday after the intervention (SD for Monday and Thursday varied from 26.1-52.1 in reaction times and 0.9-3.1 in lapses). Therefore, some of the workers showed greater decreases in the performance of a reaction time task toward Thursday, suggesting inter-individual differences in response to a manipulated sleep-wake pattern (28,29). On the contrary, the performance data in the habitual weekend sleep condition indicate that deteriorated performance on the subsequent Monday was restored to the baseline level on Thursday.…”

Factors Influencing Recovery from Fatigue after a 16-hour Night Shift among Female Japanese Nurses

“…A previous study evaluated participants who completed four consecutive night shifts and then received a day off before returning to day shifts. The study revealed that persons who achieved early fatigue recovery exhibited high-quality night-time sleeping and earlier times going to sleep [15]. Thus, our findings may be related to the nurses in the recovery group being aware of their fatigue, and adjusting their sleep timing and duration accordingly.…”

Prioritizing sleep for healthy work schedules

“…Preliminary results assessing sleep recovery following four successive night shifts showed that there are at least four types of recovery: rapid, slow, pseudo and incomplete types (Figure 4) [53]. The recovery types were not associated with morningness-eveningness, the quality of daytime sleep during the night shift period, PVT performance or subjective sleepiness during the simulated night shifts.…”

“… Recovery of sleep after simulation over four successive night shifts [53]. (a) Rapid (n = 4), (b) slow (n = 3), (c) pseudo (n = 2), and (d) incomplete (n = 1) recovery groups.…”