Addressing better sleep for crews

The Navy has established new guidelines for surface ship crews’ rest times, and exploring whether specially tinted safety eyewear can help sailors fall asleep faster during scheduled downtime, after a comprehensive review of surface force readiness showed crews were overworked and under-rested. During the summer, Navy leadership acknowledged that poorly rested deployed crews saw degraded performance due to insufficient sleep. The Comprehensive Review of Recent Surface Force Incidents noted the link between work performance and sleep. The Navy has sought to take measures to assist sailors with more and better rest periods. One tactic was to address sailors’ ability to fall asleep after working shifts at computer screens or artificial lighting. Blue light blocks the brain’s production of melatonin, a brain-created chemical to help people fall asleep, according to Navy Medicine researchers. Based on initial testing, wearing specially-tinted glasses for an hour before sleep can help one fall asleep faster. The Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity at Yorktown, Va., has crafted a tinted glasses that block about 70 percent of blue light, according to a Military Health System news release. Testing on the lenses has specifically focused on sleep and circadian rhythms. Following two 2017 fatal guided-missile destroyer collisions, Navy investigators found both incidents were caused in part by the prevalence of over-worked and under-rested sailors in the fleet. “Sleep deprivation has been a significant and well-documented issue for service members,” Cmdr. Marc Herwitz, chief ancillary informatics officer for the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine. The Navy has been seeking to address sleep deprivation through a new sailor rest and workday guideline that requires commanders to incorporate circadian rhythm principles into their watchbills and shipboard routines. (Source: USNI News 12/28/17)