One of the largest sleep studies ever (Michigan State University) just revealed that sleep deprivation has a much more negative effect than earlier studies indicated. Prior studies showed how too little sleep hurts a person’s ability to maintain attention, but this one also looked at how it impacts placekeeping, or the ability to complete a series of steps without losing one’s place. The impact, the researchers said, is “startling”: Sleep deprivation doubles the odds of making placekeeping errors and triples the number of lapses in attention. They note: “Sleep-deprived individuals need to exercise caution in absolutely everything that they do.”
