Sleep plays a vital role in how the brain controls movement, focus, and precision. In this NightOwling lesson, circadian health expert and medical scientist Logan Pendergrast, Ph.D., explains how deep sleep enhances motor coordination and sharpens reaction time.
Dr. Pendergrast discusses how fatigue disrupts these neural pathways, reducing accuracy and increasing the likelihood of errors in both routine and high-stakes tasks. Drawing on real-world research, this lesson highlights why consistent rest is essential for learning new skills, maintaining focus, and performing safely at work or behind the wheel.
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So what about our skills? What about the
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types of things we need to do during our
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work or our daily lives such as driving
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a car or at work performing a surgery or
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operating a machine? Well, we see that
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deep sleep helps us to coordinate our
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motor function. And what this means is
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that our motor neurons that are helping
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us to move our muscles of our body are
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working more effectively when we've
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slept properly. We also see that this
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reduction in error that occurs from our
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motor neurons working better helps us to
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learn and consolidate new skills. And
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inversely we see that poor sleep
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interferes with our motor neuron
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function. And the equivalent to this is
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24 hours of lost sleep or staying up for
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24 hours straight is equivalent to about
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a 0.1%
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alcohol intoxication. So that equivalent
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is uh stark and noteworthy and can
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really lead to an infringement in upon
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our motor neuron function and our
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ability to operate machines and operate
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our day-to-day lives. And the folks at
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NASA have caught on to this and they
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have observed that poor sleep is
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affecting their pilots and they see that
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the pilots that sleep effectively have a
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30% reduction in the amount of errors
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that they commit.
