Daytime Sleepiness, Performance, Mood, Nocturnal Sleep: The Effect of Benzodiazepine and Caffeine on Their Relationship

Abstract

The present study was part of a larger 3-day, 2-night double-blind parallel group design in which 80 young adult men were divided into eight treatment groups to examine the effects of benzodiazepines and caffeine on nocturnal sleep and daytime sleepiness, performance, and mood. The present study was done to examine further the relationship among daytime sleepiness, performance, mood, and nocturnal sleep and to determine if and how these relationships were affected by the nighttime use of benzodiazepine and the ingestion of caffeine in the morning. Subjects received 15 or 30 mg of flurazepam, 0.25 or 0.50 mg of triazolam, or placebo at bedtime and 250 mg of caffeine or placebo in the morning for two treatment days. Two objective (Multiple Sleep Latency Test and lapses) and two subjective (Stanford Sleepiness Scale and Visual Analog Scale) measures of sleepiness, five performance tests, and two mood measures (Profile of Mood Scale and Visual Analog Scale) were administered repeatedly on both days. Electroencephalogram sleep was recorded on both nights. Objective sleep measures of daytime sleepiness were not significantly related to either performance or mood, but subjects with greater daytime sleepiness had significantly longer and more efficient nocturnal sleep. Neither benzodiazepine or caffeine influenced these relationships. In contrast, higher estimates of subjective sleepiness were significantly associated with poorer mood and tended to be related to poorer performance. Caffeine significantly reduced these relationships. Nocturnal sleep measures were not related to subjective estimates of daytime sleepiness.

Risk of traffic accidents in patients with sleep-disordered breathing: reduction with nasal CPAP

“…As reported previously [36,37], these results indicate a poor agreement between reported sleepiness and objective sleepiness as measured by the MSLT.…”

Effects of caffeine and caffeine withdrawal on mood and cognitive performance degraded by sleep restriction

“…That is, caffeine consumption failed to benefit the performance of participants who were free of the negative effects of acute caffeine withdrawal, even in the context of low alertness induced by sleep restriction. This is a key result, because it contradicts suggestions that caffeine is especially beneficial for performance when alertness is low (e.g., Johnson et al 1990;Lorist et al 1994;Smith et al 1994;Horne and Reyner 1996;Lieberman et al 2002;Reyner and Horne 2002;Wesensten et al 2002). Caffeine did affect the cognitive performance of the ONW participants, but merely to prevent yet further deterioration in their poorer pre-treatment performance.…”

“…Consequently, it remains possible that there are circumstances under which caffeine consumption will bring about a significant net improvement of functioning. In particular, it has been suggested that caffeine is most likely to benefit performance when alertness is low (e.g., Johnson et al 1990;Lorist et al 1994;Smith et al 1994;Horne and Reyner 1996;Lieberman et al 2002;Reyner and Horne 2002;Wesensten et al 2002). Accordingly, the present study investigated the effects of caffeine on self-rated mood and alertness, and performance of various cognitive and psychomotor tasks in LTW and ONW participants whose sleep had been restricted to 5 h on the night before testing.…”

Nocturnal Sleep and Daytime Somnolence in Untreated Patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: Changes After Treatment with Controlled‐Release Carbamazepine

“…Subjective sleepiness, as measured by the SSS, was greater in the control group but was not modified by the drug. The divergence between subjective and objective values is not surprising, since it has clearly been demonstrated that subjective sleepiness is usually not related to the subject's actual propensity to fall asleep (29)(30)(31).…”