A study by scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston reveals that lack of sleep slows us down, even if we don't feel physically tired . Specifically, as neuroscientist Jeanne F. Duffy and her colleagues explain in the latest issue of The Journal of Vision , sleeping only five to six hours each night can negatively affect performance of complex visual tasks involved in jobs such as traffic control air or passenger baggage screening at train stations and airports. "This type of work requires encoding data in memory , processing abundant visual information and constantly making decisions based on the information, all quickly and repeatedly," the researchers clarify. In their experiments they showed that the more hours we spend awake, the slower we are performing these types of activities. On the other hand, when we sleep little, as waking hours pass, it is more difficult for us to identify what part of the information we perceive is relevant . And to this is added that during the night the "excess of slowness" worsens , according to the scientists.
The longer we stay awake, the slower we are
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