TAP reading note: Effects of recovery sleep after one work week of mild sleep restriction on interleukin-6 and cortisol secretion and daytime sleepiness and performance
Recovery differed across outcomes after mild sleep restriction. After two extended nights, IL-6 was not significantly different from baseline and sleepiness/fatigue improved, but sustained-attention performance did not recover. Twenty-four-hour cortisol had not significantly increased during restriction, so its subsequent fall is not evidence that all stress measures returned together.
Updated 2026-10-29 · Archived
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What the study found
Recovery differed across outcomes after mild sleep restriction. After two extended nights, IL-6 was not significantly different from baseline and sleepiness/fatigue improved, but sustained-attention performance did not recover. Twenty-four-hour cortisol had not significantly increased during restriction, so its subsequent fall is not evidence that all stress measures returned together.
Scope & limitations
30 healthy adults, 16 men and 14 women, in a fixed-sequence within-person experiment.
Without an external control, sequence, practice, earlier awakening and daytime activity may confound results. A nonsignificant baseline difference is not an equivalence test. Findings apply to the measured outcomes and recovery window.
Population & sample
30 healthy adults, 16 men and 14 women, in a fixed-sequence within-person experiment.
Exposure or intervention
Four eight-hour, six six-hour and three ten-hour time-in-bed nights; key measurements after five restricted and two recovery nights.
Outcomes
IL-6, 24-hour cortisol, sleepiness, fatigue and vigilance. Post-recovery IL-6 difference from baseline was .02±.34 pg/mL, P=.94.
Time frame
13-night protocol, focusing on restriction and the state after two recovery nights.
Research funding
Not yet verified against the full text.
Research conflicts of interest
Not yet verified against the full text.
Reading scope
PMC web full-text protocol, blood sampling, results and discussion. Independent controls, circadian alignment and longer recovery require other studies.
References
Publication record
TAP-RDN-0026 · v0.3 · English
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Record for v0.3 · Updated
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