Improving Slumber on the Space Station With Sleep-Long

It is difficult to sleep in a strange place, especially when you are far from home. Just imagine if you were approximately 210 miles from home and free floating in a spacecraft orbiting the Earth, like the crew members aboard the International Space Station. Whether on Earth or in orbit, sleep is essential to human well-being. In space, getting enough rest is also vital for the safe completion of critical operations, as the crew may be one alarm bell away from a life-and-death situation.

To develop measures to improve the quality and duration of sleep in space, scientists are conducting the Sleep -- Wake Actigraphy and Light Exposure During Spaceflight -- Long investigation or Sleep-Long. This study examines the sleep -- wake patterns of the crew members while they are aboard the space station.

The quality and duration of slumber impact human health, attitude, and ability to focus. The Institute of Medicine released a report in 2006 stating that chronic sleep loss could lead to hypertension, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, stroke and multiple psychiatric disorders. Crew members spend years training for missions on strenuous schedules and then, when they finally reach the space station, their coordinated timetable does not allow for hitting the snooze button.

The manager of the Behavioral Health and Performance Element Human Research Program Space Medicine Division at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Lauren Leveton, Ph.D., points out the importance of the impact of sleep loss to the crew. "When you consider the risky business of spaceflight," said Leveton, "We want to reduce the risk of performance decrements and optimize people's performance capabilities."