Cognitive Performance Effects of Sleep Deprivation

My family and I have been sick since returning from our vacation last week.

Like slow-moving dominoes falling, my wife, my oldest son, and then, yesterday, my youngest son all tested positive for COVID-19. We’re all vaccinated, and their symptoms have, for the most part, been mild.

While I’ve been showing symptoms recently, I still haven’t been tested positive for the coronavirus despite a dozen rapid antigen, NAAT, and PCR tests over the past week.

Conspiracy theorists in my household argue that I was Patient Zero, being the first infected person in the family and unknowingly spreading it to them.

I don’t know about that, but I know I was feeling fatigued during the entire cruise. And my WHOOP was telling me as much. If you’re not familiar with WHOOP, it’s a wearable tracking device that monitors your sleep, recovery, and daily effort around the clock to deliver insights on how you can optimize how you go about your day. (I’m sure various apps on the Apple Watch can detect the same information, too.)

Last week, on the cruise, my WHOOP metrics were telling me that my respiratory rate was abnormal and hovering around the red zone. My normal respiratory rate—the amount of breaths you take per minute while at rest—is typically between 17.2 rpm to 17.9 rpm. The respiratory rate is a general indicator of cardiovascular fitness.

Mine was elevated to 18.4 rpm. WHOOP explained what could have caused my elevated respiratory rate. But I ruled out many of the factors except one.

Was it “a recent challenging workout”? Nope! This certainly wasn’t the cause. I was on vacation.

Was it “severe allergies or asthma”? Not this either. I was at sea. No pollen or cats there.

Was it “smoking or heavy alcohol consumption”? Again, no. I don’t smoke, and I had one only alcoholic beverage during the entire cruise.

Was it “high altitude”? Being on a cruise, I couldn’t be any closer to sea level.

The last potential cause identified by WHOOP was “illness or lack of sleep.” I didn’t have any symptoms of any illness at the time, so I ruled that out. And I had just been tested negative for COVID-19 the day before boarding the cruise.

As a result, my “lack of sleep” seemed to be the most plausible culprit for my elevated respiratory rate. I had done an all-nighter the night before boarding the cruise, and I rarely get a good night’s sleep when I’m not sleeping in my own bed anyway. So even though I was still getting my relatively low average of 6.5 hours of sleep per night, it wasn’t the best 6.5 hours of sleep.

After returning from the cruise, my respiratory rate went back down, although it was still on the higher end of the normal range.

Back in my own bed at home, I forced myself to catch up on sleep. For three straight days, I got nearly 100% of my needed sleep, which hasn’t ever happened since I started wearing my WHOOP. As a result, I felt refresher and stronger and my respiratory rate decreased. I even received kudos from WHOOP after the three-day span of sufficient sleep: “Over this period, your Sleep Performance is higher than your prior 14-day average (71%), giving your body a better chance at recovery. Try to keep this trend going.”

I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep this trend going, but it does show the importance of sleep.

So let’s discuss getting sufficient sleep and preparing for the bar exam. Quality sleep helps us to learn more quickly and retain what we learn. When we are rested, we think and problem solve more effectively and more creatively, and we feel more motivated.

On the other hand, our cognitive functioning declines rapidly with sleep deprivation.

Check out the findings in the article, Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation. The neuroscience research shows that while certain parts of our brains can function decently on little sleep, other parts of our brains that play a role in reasoning and problem-solving struggle greatly with sleep deprivation.

The article identifies what happens to your cognitive performance when you don’t get enough sleep. Here are just a few of those cognitive performance effects, along with my explanations as to how they might impact your bar studying:

Negative ​Cognitive Performance Effects	Impact on Bar Exam Preparation
​Involuntary microsleeps occur.	You might fall asleep, doze off, or daydream more frequently.
Attention-intensive performance is unstable with increased errors of omission (lapses) and commission.	You're more susceptible of selecting wrong or, as I sometimes call them, “sucker” answer choices.
Cognitive slowing occurs in subject-paced tasks, whereas time pressure increases cognitive errors.	You might take longer to read a fact pattern to fully understand it, or you might overlook legally significant facts in trying to complete a multiple-choice question in the 1.8 minutes it should take you.
Both short-term recall and working memory performances decline.	You might be putting in the time when it comes to studying, but that time might not be as productive as it should be.
Performance requiring divergent thinking deteriorates.	You might be only focused on the primary issue provided to you in the call of the question rather than thinking about all of the potential tangential issues that need to be examined to reach the ultimate conclusion (and to maximize points on the essay).
Response perseveration on ineffective solutions is more likely to occur.	As you read the explanatory answers to missed multiple-choice questions, you might not remember the reasons why you missed the question, potentially causing yourself to make the same error on subsequent questions.
Tasks may begin well, but performance deteriorates as task duration increases.	As you’re putting in longer days preparing for the bar exam during these final weeks, you might find the latter hours not being as productive as the hours when you began your studying at the start of the day.
Growing neglect of activities judged to be nonessential (loss of situational awareness) occurs.	You might not be taking care of yourself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

When you study when you’re tired, your studying will likely be less productive, and you’ll likely make more mistakes as you’re answering multiple-choice and essay questions. In addition, when you study when you’re sleepy, you’ll likely be more prone to distraction, such as checking our phones.

So get your sleep! And get into a good routine as you head into the final month of bar preparation.