Sleep, alcohol, and caffeine in financial traders

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Sleep Science
• Substance Use Research

Background:

• Alcohol and caffeine are widely used consciousness-altering substances.
• Their individual impacts on sleep are known, but real-world combined effects remain unclear, especially in high-use professions like finance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the real-world impact of alcohol and caffeine, individually and combined, on night-to-night sleep.
• To examine these effects in financial traders, a cohort with high substance use.

Main Methods:

• A six-week micro-longitudinal study was conducted.
• The study tracked alcohol and caffeine consumption and its effects on sleep in financial traders.

Main Results:

• Alcohol consumption significantly degraded subjective sleep quality (p < 0.001).
• Caffeine consumption reduced sleep quantity (p = 0.019) but not quality.
• Combined consumption showed alcohol partially mitigating caffeine's reduction in sleep quantity (p = 0.032).

Conclusions:

• Alcohol and caffeine have distinct impacts on real-world sleep: alcohol affects quality, caffeine affects quantity.
• The combined use may involve a self-medication dynamic where effects on sleep quantity and quality obscure each other.
• Findings offer insights into substance use impacts on sleep under free-living conditions with potential economic implications.