The relationship between sleep regimen and performance in United States Navy recruits

• Main Author: Andrews, Charles H.
• Other Authors: Miller, Nita Lewis
• Format: Others
• Published: Monterey California. Naval Postgraduate School 2012
• Subjects: Fatigue; Mental fatigue; Sleep deprivation; Performance
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/1467

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited === Fatigue due to sleep deprivation is a major factor in both mental and physical performance. Failure of Recruits to receive the proper quality and quantity of sleep can be detrimental to a Recruit’s safety and can diminish the amount of information learned during training. During the 1980s, the sleep regimen was decreased to 6 hours of sleep per night. In 2002, a decision was made to give U.S. Navy Recruits an additional two hours of sleep per night. This latest modification was selected to coincide with the acknowledged adolescent/young adult circadian rhythms. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the new eight-hour sleep regimen using standardized test scores as a performance measure. One year of data with the eight-hour sleep regimen is compared to two separate years when only six hours of sleep was allowed. There is a significant difference, F(2, 33) = 29.82, p < .0001, between the test scores of Recruits receiving 6-hours of sleep and 8-hours of sleep. On average test scores rose by 11 percent with the additional sleep. The odds of observing such a difference by chance is less than one in ten million. === Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy