Maintaining health and performance in challenging spatial and temporal environments

Abstract

Summary: Humans have always aspired to reach new frontiers, both spatial and temporal. We have illuminated the night and started working around the clock, we have conquered the skies and explored space, and we are connected on a global scale never seen before. As a consequence, our lives and work conditions have become more challenging in many ways, with sleep and biological rhythms challenged by irregular work hours, early school start times, artificial light, and, most recently, pandemic-induced lockdowns. While associated risks to health and performance are well-documented, we want to shift the focus to potential solutions and present novel findings on how to stay healthy and maintain performance in challenging environments, including operational settings (i.e., spaceflight, aviation, and shift work) and ecological settings (i.e., schools and the COVID-19 pandemic). Specifically, Dr. Cassie Hilditch (San José State University, USA) will present findings from a series of translational studies investigating the use of light as a countermeasure to sleep inertia following abrupt awakenings at night, with applications for space flight. Dr. Julia Stone (Monash University, Australia) will talk about recent advances in modeling sleep and circadian timing, including model individualization, and how they are being applied to real-world settings with significant circadian disruption, such as shift work. Dr. Dorothee Fischer (German Aerospace Center, Germany) will present data from helicopter pilots in the emergency medical services working two different duty rosters, illustrating how shift scheduling can be used to improve sleep and cognitive performance. Dr. Anna Biller (Technical University Munich, Germany) will present a novel, inter-disciplinary framework of light exposure as an active human behavior and outline both structural and behavior-focused interventions to improve sleep and academic performance in educational settings, such as schools and universities. Dr. Luísa Klaus Pilz (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) will present findings from rest-activity rhythms, sleep, and mental health data collected in 2020 and 2022 of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, discussing strategies to preserve mental health. This symposium features an all-female cast of up-and-coming researchers from four different continents (Europe, North and South America, Australia), who are advancing novel research on how to stay healthy and maintain performance in environments that challenge sleep and circadian rhythms. We believe that this group of speakers are uniquely qualified to shed light on this important topic, bringing together diverse backgrounds and expertise, with the common goal to advance solution-oriented research.