Sleep quality and continuous, non-invasive beat-to-beat blood pressure recording

To investigate the effects of continuous, non-invasive, beat-to-beat finger blood pressure monitoring on sleep in healthy men.

After 1 night of habituation to the laboratory environment, which consisted of the placement of electroencephalographic equipment without recording, polygraphic sleep recordings were performed during two consecutive nights (nights 1 and 2) in 15 healthy men (mean +/- SD age 25 +/- 6 years). Blood pressure was recorded continuously for 24 h from the end of night 1 to the end of night 2.

The blood pressure recording procedure caused a decrease in the amount of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and increased the duration of nocturnal awakenings. Consequently, sleep efficiency was decreased by approximately 5%. The blood pressure measurements did not affect the duration of light and of deep sleep. Although the respective predominance of deep sleep and of REM sleep at the beginning and at the end of the sleep period were preserved during the night of blood pressure recording, the blood pressure recording procedure hampered the rise in REM sleep during the final two thirds of the sleep period.

In healthy young men continuous, non-invasive, beat-to-beat finger blood pressure monitoring induced modest reductions in sleep efficiency of similar magnitude to those observed previously with non-invasive ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.