Astronauts spend lengthy tenures in space undergoing complex tasks that are often mentally and physically demanding. Sleep deprivation can cause sleepiness and performance issues at work but in space it can be life threatening. Mission duration and prologued exposure to challenging space environments have impacts on an astronaut’s ability to sleep.
Due to stressful environmental factors in space astronauts have been shown to experiences shorter than normal 6.5hr sleep durations in space flight. Weightlessness does however lessen muscle exertion than that of in normal gravity, this thought to reduce required sleep time to repair muscles. A study funded by NASA published in 2022 showed that astronauts with 6.5hr sleep durations had reduced psychomotor response speeds while even shorter sleep durations were associated with negative somatic neurobehavioral functions and even immune regulatory defects. Sleep deprivation for astronauts is being combatted with psychoactive medications, antihistamines and melatonin doses.
Other ongoing studies aim to develop strategies to mitigate immune regulatory defects during space flight with the goal of using them for exploration missions to Mars – we may be sleeping our way to Mars soon.
How do astronauts strap in for sleep in space? This video explains:
https://www.space.com/how-astronauts-get-ready-for-bed-in-space-video
Ramburrun P., Ramburrun S., Choonara Y.E. (2022) Sleep in Space Environment. In: Pathak Y.V., Araújo dos Santos M., Zea L. (eds) Handbook of Space Pharmaceuticals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05526-4_33. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-05526-4_33
Christopher W Jones, Mathias Basner, Daniel J Mollicone, Christopher M Mott, David F Dinges, Sleep deficiency in spaceflight is associated with degraded neurobehavioral functions and elevated stress in astronauts on six-month missions aboard the International Space Station, Sleep, Volume 45, Issue 3, March 2022, zsac006, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsac006. https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/45/3/zsac006/6505235?login=false
