Improving Human Performance Through Sleep Restoration

Sleep deprivation decreases attention, ability to perform complex mental operations, and reduces physical endurance, strength, resilience and accuracy while increasing risk of injury and recovery times. SOF must mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation in order to maintain a high level of performance and mission critical attributes. Tryptophan rich protein sources like Alpha-Lactalbumin have demonstrated the ability to improve sleep latency and other measures of healthy sleep by promoting natural synthesis of serotonin and melatonin. Additionally, other ingredients like polyphenol rich tart cherry and targeted supplements for inflammation and oxidative stress have shown efficacy in improving sleep, reducing inflammation or promoting overall health and, thus, should be considered in the formulation of a countermeasure to improve sleep and mitigate negative consequences of sleep deprivation. Our Base product is food labeled and will contain a clinically significant amount of alpha-lactalbumin and tart-cherry as the primary active ingredients. We will implement an educational system as well as a technology-based sleep assessment tools to test our systematic nutritional approach to improving sleep and mitigating the effects of sleep deprivation. We will test our food-based sleep optimization strategy in three populations of military personnel to validate the efficacy of the sleep profiling technologies as well as the nutritional intervention. Additionally, our Option II is the Base option plus a pilot study to look-into creating personalized interventions at scale for SOF populations with more severe cases of sleep deprivation and related effects.