30 Seconds SummaryResearch Spotlight: The progressive effects of sleep restriction and extension
- Controlled studies on sleep often only investigate effects of a single night’s sleep disruption, while longitudinal studies are often purely observational, limiting causal conclusions about sleep duration effects.
- The literature generally focuses on negative impacts of sleep reduction, with scant research on potential positives of extended sleep, especially among athletes.
- A 2019 study involving nine endurance-trained athletes studied the impacts of normal sleep, sleep restriction, and sleep extension on their performance over several days.
- Participants underwent a crossover study that involved cycling time trials and psychomotor vigilance tasks under three different sleep conditions, adjusting their sleep duration by 30% for restriction or extension.
- Athletes performed consistently in the normal and extended sleep conditions, but their time trial performance deteriorated significantly under sleep restriction.
- Sleep extension showed positive effects on mood and psychomotor response times, suggesting broader mental and emotional benefits beyond just physical performance enhancement.
- The study supports the generalizability of sleep extension benefits for non-collegiate athletes and possibly for the wider population, though more research is needed to confirm these findings.
Stronger By Science
Greg Nuckols
