Counteracting The Effects of Sleep Deprivation
Several strategies are common in attempting to increase alertness and counteract the effects of sleep deprivation. Caffeine is often used over short periods to boost wakefulness when acute sleep deprivation is experienced; however, caffeine is less effective if taken routinely. Other strategies recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine include prophylactic sleep before deprivation, naps, other stimulants, and combinations thereof. However, the only sure and safe way to combat sleep deprivation is to increase nightly sleep time.
Recovery of cognitive function is accomplished more rapidly after acute total sleep deprivation than after chronic partial sleep restriction. Chronic deprivation is the more common in everyday life. Just one night of recovery sleep can reverse adverse effects of total sleep deprivation. Recovery sleep is more efficient than normal sleep with shorter sleep latency and increased amounts of deep and REM sleep.
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“Any one who knows what the worth of family affection is among the lower classes, and who has seen the array of little portraits stuck over a labourer’s fireplace ... will perhaps feel with me that in counteracting the tendencies, social and industrial, which every day are sapping the healthier family affections, the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world.”
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