Return to Pointer View home page February 11,  2005

Catching some ZZZs

Study looks at cadet sleep habits 

By Spc. Benjamin Gruver
Staff Writer

Keeping physically fit, academically alert and leadership bound are just some of the challenges facing U.S. Military Academy cadets. However, a stressful side effect of these challenges is one that no one can avoid: lack of sleep. This is a serious issue cadets and military personnel alike face, said Col. Lawrence G. Shattuck, a professor of Engineering Psychology in the Behavioral Science and Leadership.

Shattuck, along with Dr. Nita Lewis Miller from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., are taking a closer look at the issue with the largest longitudinal sleep study of adolescents ever done.

The purpose, Shattuck explained, is to collect empirical data on sleep patterns and cadet performance. That information can then be used not only to help the leadership here make policy changes, but to educate future officers on possible sleep issues their soldiers might face when deployed to hostile environments.

“There used to be a cool commercial in the 1980s that said “we do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day,” Shattuck said. “However, there is another idea that we ‘own the night.’”

“Well, what is it? Are we morning people or are we evening people? One person can’t fight 24-7.”

Decades of soldiers and leaders here and throughout the Army have no doubt experienced sleep deprivation, he said.

“Until now this culture of the academy and the Army suggested less sleep equals a tougher soldier,” Shattuck said.

“I think we’ve got to break that mind-set.”

 Shattuck and Miller began working on the study in 2003. It focuses on the age groups that cadets -- and a large part of the military – fall into.

The study began on reception day and is divided into two phases. First they collected survey data from the entire Class of 2007 on their sleep habits and demographic data before coming to the academy. Then they selected 80 new cadets to take part in the study and issued them wrist activity monitors to detect and record their motions.

“The monitors allow researchers to determine if the cadet is asleep or awake,” Shattuck said.

The first phase lasted through Cadet Basic Training and included 40 added participants --upperclassmen serving as CBT cadre. He said what they found was new cadets – and cadre members – getting very little sleep.

“We know, based on the calculations, that this group slept roughly 8 hours a night before they got here and roughly 5 hours and 40 minutes a night during CBT,” Shattuck said. “So new cadets are getting two hours less sleep per night and, oh by the way, are asked to do a whole lot more and be more physically active than they were before.”

The second phase of the study will last until the Class of 2007 reaches graduation day. The same 80 cadets wearing the WAMs during CBT are wearing the monitors for 30 days each semester. 

Shattuck said he hopes the results of the study can be used to teach people about the importance of sleep. He said cadets trying to function on 4 and 5 hours of sleep a night display symptoms like someone with a 0.12 blood alcohol level.

“We’ve seen people with a performance level equivalent to someone who is legally drunk just because they weren’t getting enough sleep,” Shattuck explained.

If this study can gather enough data to show leaders that performance level can be directly linked to sleep, it will have served an important purpose, he said.

“It is our responsibility to ensure our soldiers and cadets are getting the sleep they need to be able to perform at their best,” Shattuck added.