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Updated: Sep 4, 2025

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Collecting Sleep, Circadian, Fatigue, and Performance Data in Complex Operational Environments
Published on: August 8, 2019
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Sleep and Infantry Battle Drill Performance in Special Operations Soldiers.
Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance
|July 21, 2022
Summary
Adequate sleep duration and quality are crucial for soldier performance during demanding training. Soldiers sleeping 7 hours or more made fewer errors in combat drills compared to those sleeping less.
Area of Science:
- Military Science
- Sleep Medicine
- Human Performance
Background:
- Previous research on sleep and soldier performance relied on artificial measures.
- A gap exists in understanding sleep's impact on naturalistic combat performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between sleep and performance in infantry battle drill training.
- To assess sleep's effect on close-quarter battle (CQB) performance.
Main Methods:
- 15 junior Special Operations infantry soldiers participated.
- Actigraphy and subjective sleep reports (duration, quality) were collected.
- Performance was measured by error counts during live ammunition CQB drills.
Main Results:
- Fewer errors were correlated with higher subjective sleep duration and quality.
- Soldiers reporting ≥7 hours of sleep made significantly fewer errors (0.63) than those sleeping <7 hours (1.71).
- Sleep quality ≥85% was associated with fewer errors (0.40) compared to <85% (1.50).
Conclusions:
- Preliminary findings suggest sleep duration and quality influence infantry battle drill performance.
- This effect may be more pronounced in less experienced soldiers.
- Further research with sleep augmentation is recommended to establish causality.
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