Improving wake-up a giant leap for better sleep
From self-confessed “space fangirl” to seven years working in the sleep lab at NASA's Ames Research Center, CQUniversity researcher Dr Cassie Hilditch has taken her sleep science career into the stratosphere.
Now back in Australia with CQU’s world-leading Appleton Institute for wellbeing at work, rest and play, Dr Hilditch is bringing unique insights to improve sleep across the population – so we’re all waking up fresher.
The Adelaide-based researcher is an international expert in sleep inertia, the ‘grogginess’ experienced for up to 20 minutes as the brain transitions from sleep to wake.
While most humans cope with coffee or the snooze button, that’s not an option for many on-call and shift workers, including doctors and nurses, emergency responders, pilots and even astronauts.
“Importantly, it’s not just feeling sleepy – the research shows that your reaction time, your decision-making, even your ability to do maths is impaired,” Dr Hilditch explained.
“So when you get that call and you have to be operationally ready straight away, sleep inertia has huge implications for your safety, and how well you can do your job.”
CQUniversity research shows almost half of the Australian workforce clocks on outside traditional nine-to-five hours, with potential sleep inertia impacts.
Fresh approach
Dr Hilditch’s research has shown how exposure to bright, blue-enriched light on waking, especially at nighttime, can decrease sleep inertia.
Other strategies for waking fresher from sleep include:
- taking shorter (less than 20 minutes) or longer (around 90 minutes) naps, to reduce the risk of waking while in deep sleep
- consuming coffee before a 20-minute nap, to get the caffeine effect as you wake up
- taking naps earlier rather than later if awake for a long stretch - for example, nap within 18 hours of waking on a 24-hour shift.
Up, up and asleep
As part of her work through San Jose State University at NASA’s Fatigue Countermeasures Lab in California's Silicon Valley, Dr Hilditch focused on how pilots manage fatigue on long-haul flights.
‘Controlled rest’ allows a pilot to sleep in the cockpit, while their co-pilot is at the controls – a safety strategy across international airlines including in Australia, but not permitted on US carriers.
“Obviously there’s a long list of procedures and rules around controlled rest, and one of the risks is sleep inertia,” she explained.
“So, I was working with international airlines to grow the evidence-base on controlled rest, and to create a best-practice guide for the Flight Safety Foundation.”
Space to sleep
With her role at NASA focused mainly on aeronautical sleep, Dr Hilditch made the interest personal - pursuing her private pilot’s license while in the US.
She said working at NASA’s Ames Research Centre was often surreal – and a reminder of how far sleep science had come.
“This was where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did flight simulations before the Apollo missions, so the connection to space exploration is huge,” she explained.
“On those early missions, sleep wasn't even considered – there was nowhere to sleep on the Lunar Module!
"The astronauts just kind of curled up on the floor and were very cold and uncomfortable.
“Now sleep conditions are much better, on the International Space Station each astronaut even has their own ‘bedroom’.
“But it’s always a challenge to balance schedules and spacecraft design with so many other competing factors for future missions to the moon and beyond.”
Protecting sleep Earthside
At CQUniversity’s state-of-the-science sleep labs in Adelaide, Dr Hilditch is working across a range of projects to improve sleep for shift workers.
“One of the best sleep tips usually is to have regularly timed sleep, and that’s the challenge for shift workers, whether in aviation, or in space, or anywhere else!” she said.
For best-practice advice to manage fatigue around work schedules, CQUniversity’s Healthy Shiftwork project shares tailored, engaging information for shift workers who are just starting out, for better sleep, nutrition and physical activity.
Explore the resources at the Healthy Shiftwork website.
