Sleep Deprivation & Coffee: Good or Bad?

Ah, that first cup of coffee in the morning – the smell of coffee brewing, the ritual of pouring it and taking those first few sips. For some people, unless this ritual – or however else they get their coffee – is one of the most important parts of the day because that coffee is their wake-up call for the day.

Another familiar scene: students or people working late into the night, leaning over their desk with their umpteenth cup of coffee in their hand. Without that coffee, they’d be fast asleep, they feel.

Does that coffee really do any good though for people who are really sleep deprived. Apparently, yes. Caffeine helps prevent increased risk taking that occurs after several nights of total sleep deprivation, say researchers after completion of study that was presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

People who have been sleep-deprived tend to take chances they wouldn’t take if they’d had enough rest. This impulsiveness can result in dangerous behaviors and bad choices. In this study of 25 people, researchers found that people didn’t have those risky behaviors if they had caffeine every night (equaling 1 to 2 cups of coffee every 2 hours from midnight to dawn) while awake for three straight days.

Half the group received a caffeine gum that provided them with the coffee equivalents and the other half received a placebo gum; neither group knew what they were chewing.

Each day, in the mid-morning, the participants were given a computerized behavioral risk test:

Participants who received the placebo were unchanged from baseline on the cost/benefit ratio of the BART at 51 hours of sleep deprivation, but showed a significant increase in risk-taking by 75 hours. The caffeine group remained unchanged from baseline at either 51 or 75 hours of wakefulness and was significantly less risky than the placebo group at 75 hours.

What this means in plain English is that there wasn’t much difference between the two groups when they were deprived of sleep for 51 hours, but when they reached 75 hours, there was a definite difference between the group who took the caffeine and those who didn’t.

While this type of research may seem a bit of a waste and seem obvious, it’s actually very useful. Many people feel that they can function on as little sleep as is possible. In fact, for some, it’s a badge of honor that they may get by on so little sleep. However, research like this proves that you can’t be as effective as you think you are and that you may actually be acting dangerously.

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Images: MorgueFile.com, iStock.com