Don’t make major decisions or send important messages late at night

When well slept, people quickly learn to avoid high-risk options. After two nights in a row with no sleep, they keep picking the high-risk ones instead; the older they are, the clearer this is. How much a few hours less sleep matter was not measured directly, but important decisions should still wait until after you wake.

Cost

No cost at all. You simply postpone these tasks until after you’ve woken up.

Benefit

Thirty-four healthy participants completed the Iowa Gambling Task after going 49.5 hours without sleep. This task is a standard way to measure risk decision making. When well-rested, they quickly learned to steer clear of high-risk options; after sleep loss, they opted for high-risk choices far more often. Older participants showed a stronger response to this effect. This is the only study of its kind to date. The total number of participants was 34.

Notes

The research focused on the extreme case of two nights of continuous sleep deprivation. There is no direct data on how ordinary people fare after staying awake until 2 a.m. The advice to avoid sending messages late at night is based on the authors’ personal experience (rated as Grade C evidence); it is perfectly fine to send such messages the following day instead.

Sources · 1

1. Killgore, Balkin & Wesensten (2006). Impaired decision making following 49 h of sleep deprivation. Journal of Sleep Research. doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2006.00487.x