GETTING less than six hours of sleep a night for just two weeks impairs your mental abilities as much as not sleeping for two days.
The surprising finding comes from a study of 48 young adults asked to perform standard tests of mental alertness and vigilance. Those getting less than six hours’ sleep each night failed to spot how badly they performed and didn’t report feeling sleepy. This suggests that people in safety-critical jobs in healthcare and aviation may not adapt to long working hours as well as once thought, say Hans Van Dongen and his team at the University…
