The Effect of Cognitive Activity on Sleep Maintenance in a Subsequent Daytime Nap

Abstract

Our results indicate that presleep learning favors sleep propensity and maintenance, offering the possibility to explore planned cognitive training as a low-cost treatment for sleep impairments.

The effect of complex cognitive training on subsequent night sleep

“…*Significant differences relative to BL (p < .05); #significant differences relative to AC (p < .05). Error bars represent standard deviation our nap study using the same task (Arzilli et al, 2019). These findings are in contrast with previous data showing that pre-sleep cognitive activity may hinder sleep propensity and quality by increasing psychophysiological arousal (Higuchi, Motohashi, Liu, & Maeda, 2005;Wuyts et al, 2012).…”

“…In the TR condition, the task was the same as used in Arzilli et al (2019), i.e. a slightly modified version of the word game Ruzzle , created in order to have exactly the same stimuli for all participants, with a balanced amount of “easy”, “medium” and “difficult” rounds.…”

“…In each round, the player has 2 min to trace on an iPad screen as many words as possible with the 16 letters available in a 4 × 4 grid. The training session followed the same scheme as in Arzilli et al (2019). It lasted approximately 40 min and ended naturally after the last trial.…”

“…Here we aim to extend these findings to nighttime sleep. Based on our previous results (Arzilli et al, 2019), the expected primary outcome is that training will especially improve sleep continuity, stability and organization. According to this hypothesis, we have chosen a sample of habitual bad sleepers, in which impaired baseline sleep quality would warrant sufficient sensitivity for training-dependent changes in these sleep variables.…”

“…In line with this, we have recently conceived a complex multi‐componential task based on a slightly modified version of the common videogame Ruzzle , requiring, as in most real‐life situations, the combined activation of several cognitive functions, both simple and executive. Its intensive administration before a daytime nap produced improvements in participants’ sleep propensity, continuity and stability (Arzilli et al, 2019).…”