How to save your day after a bad night’s sleep

Most of us know that good sleep is a pillar of good health, much like exercise and diet. And yet, most of us have had a night (or several nights) when it all went wrong.

Maybe you stayed out late and only got six hours, instead of the recommended seven to nine. Maybe your racing brain didn’t shut down and you woke up every hour, on the hour. Or maybe you missed a whole night’s sleep working to a deadline.

Whatever the scenario, a bad night’s sleep can be devastating the next day. Here’s how sleep deprivation affects you and how you can mitigate its effects.

Your sleepy brain

Research shows that when people are deprived of sleep, they have slower reaction times, impaired decision-making, difficulty paying attention and poorer memory. People are too more likely feeling anxious, depressed and antisocial.

Scientists typically see these effects in studies where they force people to stay awake for 24 hours, but Eti Ben Simon, a researcher at the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, said that if you “just a few hours, for a few nights, you’ll eventually see the same profile appear.

In the brainThese changes are reflected in less activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for planning, decision-making and other executive functions. At the same time, there is more activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in feelings of fear and anxiety.

Sleep deprivation can also increase sleepiness sympathetic nervous system, which regulates the ‘fight or flight’ response, which makes us feel stressed and tense. “Our blood pressure, heart rate response and cortisol response, all these components of the sympathetic nervous system,” are increased without sleep, said Dr. Ben Simon.

How to clear the fog

To alleviate these effects, the most important thing experts recommend is taking a nap. It can’t help you alone feels less sleepybut it is actually possible improve your performance on many of the cognitive processes that are hampered by a lack of sleep.

To avoid the “sleep sluggishness” that some people feel after a nap, try limiting yourself to 30 minutes. “You may not even feel like you’re falling asleep,” says Kelly Baron, a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah who treats sleep disorders. “But even a little bit of that light sleep can help your brain get some rest and boost your performance.”

Caffeine can also strengthen alertness and cognition. Don’t go overboard, though: Too much caffeine can make people feel anxious and jittery and increase heart rate — which you may already be experiencing due to a lack of sleep.

Regular exercise has been shown to counteract the long-term health consequences of sleep loss, and there is evidence that it also improves performance immediately after a bad night’s sleep. a small study from 2022 found that students who exercised after a night of total sleep deprivation performed better on a test of cognitive control than those who did not exercise.

Exposing yourself to bright, natural light is another way to increase alertness, says Soomi Lee, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State University. To get the benefits of both light and exercise, she suggested taking an afternoon walk.

Do damage control

While these strategies can help, they won’t completely offset the effects of poor sleep. If you can, make a few adjustments to your day to avoid serious mistakes.

First things first: if you’ve had an all-nighter, don’t get behind the wheel. “If you’ve been awake all night, your performance is just as poor as if you were drunk,” says Kenneth P. Wright Jr., a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies sleep.

When it comes to work, Dr. Baron recommends giving yourself more time to complete tasks and avoiding multitasking. You can also plan your day according to your circadian rhythm. For most people, energy naturally rises in mid-morning, drops in the early afternoon, and then rises again in the late afternoon or early evening. “Do your heavier tasks when you feel better,” she said. “And if you have that silence, which will feel even worse if you’re sleep-deprived, try doing something that might be a little less cognitively taxing.”

Avoid important or heavy conversations if possible, as lack of sleep can make you more irritable and emotionally reactive. The experts also advised against taking any major life or financial steps. “You may not be able to really effectively strategize about all the pieces of information needed to make a decision,” explained Dr. Wright out.

That said, the only real cure for a bad night’s sleep is getting a good night’s sleep the next night.

“The magic solution to sleep loss,” said Dr. Ben Simon, “is sleep.”