<p>Most of us know that lack of sleep causes a number of problems: Your concentration flags, your reaction time slows, you remember less, your reasoning skills are impaired. What our research shows is that if you’ve had average or high-quality sleep but are led to believe it was poor, you might see the same negative effects. <br /><br /></p>.<p>“Experiments using fake alcohol have generated similar results: When people think they’re drinking something potent, they’ll start to behave as if they were drunk,” says Professor Erdal.<br /><br />What about the reverse? Would thinking I’ve had a good night’s sleep help me outperform?<br />Studies on real sleep have shown that people who get a good night’s rest perform on par with adult norms, not above them. And in our first experiment, the participants who were told they’d had high-quality REM sleep before doing the math exercises performed within normal limits. <br /><br />But we had an interesting finding in our second experiment, which included other types of exercises: Participants led to believe they’d had high-quality sleep significantly outscored both control groups and adult norms on a verbal fluency test. This might be a blip – it will need replication – but it could be a sign that positive perceptions about sleep can lead to better performance in some areas.You’re describing it as a placebo effect.<br />Yes, in medicine, a placebo is a non-active drug that achieves the same effect as an active one. Many recent studies have shown that psychological placebos – getting people to shift their mindset – can affect physiology in the same way. There’s one, for example, that showed that hotel maids lost more weight after learning their duties were equivalent to various exercises. <br /><br />Another found that milkshake drinkers produced more of the gut peptides that regulate appetite when told they were consuming an indulgent 620 calories rather than a sensible 140 calories. (The actual calorie count was 380.) <br />We’re not talking about conscious changes in behaviour here; I mean, most people don’t even know they have gut peptides. These are unconscious changes prompted by nontraditional placebos. We’ve extended the idea into the area of sleep.<br /><br />What are some other examples of nontraditional placebos?<br />Superstitions. People make an illusory correlation between two things, in essence creating their own placebo. And often – especially with pre-game, pre-swing or pre-shot routines but also with more-random superstitions like a lucky ball or cap – it can boost performance.<br /><br />So how do I convince myself that I’m well-rested? Or get my rivals to think they’ve been tossing and turning all night?<br />An authority figure helps. A full 88 percent of our participants said they completely believed the story we told them about the new sleep-quality measurement technique, and even those who were initially skeptical told us they ultimately didn’t doubt the information we gave them. <br /><br />In fact, it trumped their pre-existing opinions on how they’d slept the previous night, which we’d asked them for before we gave them the phony assessment results. <br />We found no correlation between self-reported sleep quality and performance. So, we know a sleep placebo can work when it’s delivered by a knowledgeable source using fancy equipment in a lab setting. If your husband rolls over to you in bed in the morning and tells you that you slept like a log, it’s unlikely to have the same effect.<br /><br />But a sleep-tracking app might. Should I tell my cubemate to stop using his if it’s telling him he’s not getting enough rest?<br />I don’t know what those apps measure or how accurate they are, so I can’t speak to their validity. But I would imagine that the people buying them already have some negative feelings about their sleep, and if you’re sleeping poorly, you don’t want to remind yourself of that fact. <br /><br />At the same time, some research on insomniacs suggests that they’re actually poor reporters of their own sleep – they get more quality rest than they think they do. So if the app is correcting that negative bias, it might be a good thing.<br /><br />Or maybe developers should just program the apps to tell everyone they’re in REM all night?<br />The world might be a better place, but obviously the apps have to do what they say they’ll do.<br /><br />Are you a good sleeper?<br />Yes, I have a gift. It was actually my student and research partner Christina who chose these experiments for her undergraduate thesis because she noticed how obsessed her peers were with sleep. <br /><br />College students constantly talk about how much, or little, they get, and it’s almost a badge of honour to stay up all night to study for a test or finish a paper. And yet Christina comes from a family that stresses the importance of getting nine hours a night. Now she’s working in a hospital pulling shifts.<br /><br />What advice do you have for organisations like hospitals, law firms, investment banks or high-tech startups, which seem to expect their junior employees to pull all-nighters or sleep at the office?<br />Anyone who needs to listen to new information, be attentive to detail, think on their feet and give clear directions needs adequate rest. And our study is evidence that perceptions matter too. <br /><br />Even if your people are going into deep REM sleep on a cot or a couch, the simple fact that they got less than eight hours total or weren’t in their own beds might cause them to think they’re fatigued and underperform accordingly. None of these companies have called me to ask, but if they did, I would tell them that sleep deprivation – real or perceived – is a bad idea.<br /><br /></p>
<p>Most of us know that lack of sleep causes a number of problems: Your concentration flags, your reaction time slows, you remember less, your reasoning skills are impaired. What our research shows is that if you’ve had average or high-quality sleep but are led to believe it was poor, you might see the same negative effects. <br /><br /></p>.<p>“Experiments using fake alcohol have generated similar results: When people think they’re drinking something potent, they’ll start to behave as if they were drunk,” says Professor Erdal.<br /><br />What about the reverse? Would thinking I’ve had a good night’s sleep help me outperform?<br />Studies on real sleep have shown that people who get a good night’s rest perform on par with adult norms, not above them. And in our first experiment, the participants who were told they’d had high-quality REM sleep before doing the math exercises performed within normal limits. <br /><br />But we had an interesting finding in our second experiment, which included other types of exercises: Participants led to believe they’d had high-quality sleep significantly outscored both control groups and adult norms on a verbal fluency test. This might be a blip – it will need replication – but it could be a sign that positive perceptions about sleep can lead to better performance in some areas.You’re describing it as a placebo effect.<br />Yes, in medicine, a placebo is a non-active drug that achieves the same effect as an active one. Many recent studies have shown that psychological placebos – getting people to shift their mindset – can affect physiology in the same way. There’s one, for example, that showed that hotel maids lost more weight after learning their duties were equivalent to various exercises. <br /><br />Another found that milkshake drinkers produced more of the gut peptides that regulate appetite when told they were consuming an indulgent 620 calories rather than a sensible 140 calories. (The actual calorie count was 380.) <br />We’re not talking about conscious changes in behaviour here; I mean, most people don’t even know they have gut peptides. These are unconscious changes prompted by nontraditional placebos. We’ve extended the idea into the area of sleep.<br /><br />What are some other examples of nontraditional placebos?<br />Superstitions. People make an illusory correlation between two things, in essence creating their own placebo. And often – especially with pre-game, pre-swing or pre-shot routines but also with more-random superstitions like a lucky ball or cap – it can boost performance.<br /><br />So how do I convince myself that I’m well-rested? Or get my rivals to think they’ve been tossing and turning all night?<br />An authority figure helps. A full 88 percent of our participants said they completely believed the story we told them about the new sleep-quality measurement technique, and even those who were initially skeptical told us they ultimately didn’t doubt the information we gave them. <br /><br />In fact, it trumped their pre-existing opinions on how they’d slept the previous night, which we’d asked them for before we gave them the phony assessment results. <br />We found no correlation between self-reported sleep quality and performance. So, we know a sleep placebo can work when it’s delivered by a knowledgeable source using fancy equipment in a lab setting. If your husband rolls over to you in bed in the morning and tells you that you slept like a log, it’s unlikely to have the same effect.<br /><br />But a sleep-tracking app might. Should I tell my cubemate to stop using his if it’s telling him he’s not getting enough rest?<br />I don’t know what those apps measure or how accurate they are, so I can’t speak to their validity. But I would imagine that the people buying them already have some negative feelings about their sleep, and if you’re sleeping poorly, you don’t want to remind yourself of that fact. <br /><br />At the same time, some research on insomniacs suggests that they’re actually poor reporters of their own sleep – they get more quality rest than they think they do. So if the app is correcting that negative bias, it might be a good thing.<br /><br />Or maybe developers should just program the apps to tell everyone they’re in REM all night?<br />The world might be a better place, but obviously the apps have to do what they say they’ll do.<br /><br />Are you a good sleeper?<br />Yes, I have a gift. It was actually my student and research partner Christina who chose these experiments for her undergraduate thesis because she noticed how obsessed her peers were with sleep. <br /><br />College students constantly talk about how much, or little, they get, and it’s almost a badge of honour to stay up all night to study for a test or finish a paper. And yet Christina comes from a family that stresses the importance of getting nine hours a night. Now she’s working in a hospital pulling shifts.<br /><br />What advice do you have for organisations like hospitals, law firms, investment banks or high-tech startups, which seem to expect their junior employees to pull all-nighters or sleep at the office?<br />Anyone who needs to listen to new information, be attentive to detail, think on their feet and give clear directions needs adequate rest. And our study is evidence that perceptions matter too. <br /><br />Even if your people are going into deep REM sleep on a cot or a couch, the simple fact that they got less than eight hours total or weren’t in their own beds might cause them to think they’re fatigued and underperform accordingly. None of these companies have called me to ask, but if they did, I would tell them that sleep deprivation – real or perceived – is a bad idea.<br /><br /></p>