The main outcomes of this study were that a significant (p<.05) relationship was found between quality of sleep and subjective sleepiness, sustained attention and subjective mood. It was found that the better quality of sleep is obtained, the less subjectively sleepy, higher sustained attention and more positive subjective mood the participant has. The present study was in line with several other studies undertaken, with many of the findings being reflected in both this study and others. Limitation such as environmental factors and carryover effects may have the data.
Introduction
Good sleeping patterns are an essential part of maintaining health, both physical and mental. Regular good sleep helps to consolidate memory, thus affecting cognitive performance, and also improves mood. Conversely, a poor nights sleep or irregular sleeping patterns have been shown to reduce cognitive performance, in ways such as reducing the ability to concentrate and affecting judgement (Taylor & McFatter, 2002). Taylor & McFatter conducted clinical trials concerning the affects of sleep on mental performance. They concluded that ‘Sleep deprivation had an overall negative effect on accuracy in the time estimation, immediate recall, delayed recall, and digit span tasks’ thus determining that sleep affected participants did consistently worse on cognitive tasks compared to their well slept counterparts. Mood is also adversely affected by sleepiness (Oginska & Pokorski, 2006) with researchers concluding that 45% of participants experiencing fatigue due to an insufficient amount of sleep experienced irrational mood swings more frequently and also more irritability than participants who were well slept. While there is much research stating the adverse affect of sleep deprivation, information concerning the positives of healthy sleep state that regular sleep in intervals of 7.5 - 8 hours per night greatly enhance cognitive and motor functions (Ellenbogen, 2005). In his