Self-imposed Sleep Loss, Sleepiness, Effort and Performance.

College students often deprive themselves of sleep so they may satisfy their academic, occupational, and social obligations. However, sleep loss causes impairments in reaction time and vigilance as well as increases in sleepiness, fatigue, and negative mood states (1-3). Sleep deprivation of one day, as compared with nonsleep-deprived conditions, also results in preferences for tasks requiring less effort (4). Human attention capacity is finite and tasks are selectively chosen depending on the amount of mental effort required (5,6). Stressors, such as sleep loss, impose limitations on the amount of mental effort that can be applied to tasks. This reduction in resources results in a prioritization of actions (7) and effort is mobilized to meet the demands necessitated by the primary or most pressing task. Remaining attention is then divided among other secondary or less pressing Self-Imposed Sleep Loss, Sleepiness, Effort and Performance