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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2022 Oct;31(5):e13558.
doi: 10.1111/jsr.13558. Epub 2022 Jan 31.

Rise and shine: The use of polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light to mitigate sleep inertia at night following awakening from slow-wave sleep

Cassie J Hilditch  1 , Lily R Wong  1 , Nicholas G Bathurst  2 , Nathan H Feick  1 , Sean Pradhan  1   3 , Amanda Santamaria  4 , Nita L Shattuck  5 , Erin E Flynn-Evans  2
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Rise and shine: The use of polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light to mitigate sleep inertia at night following awakening from slow-wave sleep

Cassie J Hilditch et al. J Sleep Res. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Sleep inertia is the brief period of performance impairment and reduced alertness experienced after waking, especially from slow-wave sleep. We assessed the efficacy of polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light to improve vigilant attention, alertness and mood immediately after waking from slow-wave sleep at night. Twelve participants (six female, 23.3 ± 4.2 years) maintained an actigraphy-confirmed sleep schedule of 8.5 hr for 5 nights, and 5 hr for 1 night prior to an overnight laboratory visit. In the laboratory, participants were awakened from slow-wave sleep, and immediately exposed to either dim, red ambient light (control) or polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light (light) for 1 hr in a randomized crossover design. They completed a 5-min Psychomotor Vigilance Task, the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, and Visual Analogue Scales of mood at 2, 17, 32 and 47 min after waking. Following this testing period, lights were turned off and participants returned to sleep. They were awakened from their subsequent slow-wave sleep period and received the opposite condition. Compared with the control condition, participants exposed to light had fewer Psychomotor Vigilance Task lapses (χ2 [1] = 5.285, p = 0.022), reported feeling more alert (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale: F1,77 = 4.955, p = 0.029; Visual Analogue Scalealert : F1,77 = 8.226, p = 0.005), and reported improved mood (Visual Analogue Scalecheerful : F1,77 = 8.615, p = 0.004). There was no significant difference in sleep-onset latency between conditions following the testing period (t10 = 1.024, p = 0.330). Our results suggest that exposure to polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light immediately after waking from slow-wave sleep at night may help improve vigilant attention, subjective alertness, and mood. Future studies should explore the potential mechanisms of this countermeasure and its efficacy in real-world environments.

Keywords: awakening; intervention; on-call workers; reactive countermeasure; shiftwork.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Protocol schematic. White shading indicates the awake at���home portion of study. Grey shading indicates in‐laboratory activities including baseline testing. Black shading indicates sleep periods. Black circles represent test bouts. Order of polychromatic short‐wavelength‐enriched light intervention (blue shading) and dim red light control (red shading) were randomized. Times shown are approximate and varied depending on habitual sleep–wake times and slow‐wave sleep (SWS) periods
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Violin plot overlaid with box plot and individual data points depicting change from baseline for Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) performance across the sleep inertia testing period by condition (blue = light; red = control). Bold lines indicate median, box hinges represent first and third quartiles, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range (IQR), individual data points displayed and visualized with density curves. RT = reaction time. Main effect (Bonferroni‐corrected) of condition for lapses (p = 0.022)
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Violin plot overlaid with box plot and individual data points depicting change from baseline for subjective Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) of mood across the sleep inertia testing period by condition (blue = light; red = control). Bold lines indicate median, box hinges represent first and third quartiles, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range (IQR), individual data points displayed and visualized with density curves. Main effect (Bonferroni‐corrected) of condition for alertness (p = 0.005) and cheerfulness (p = 0.004)
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