- The US military's research arm is researching how to improve sleep for combat troops and pilots.
- The DoD has long known that chronic sleeplessness can pose serious long-term health risks.
- DARPA-funded light therapy devices could one day boost alertness and sleep efficiency without stimulants.
US military personnel aren't getting enough sleep, but a top Pentagon research agency is trying to figure out how to fix the problems that come with that.
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, has ideas it's exploring to help tired pilots and worn-out combat troops get better sleep but also stay awake when it's needed most.
"It's very common for our warfighters to get less than six hours sleep a night, which is really the definition of chronic sleep deprivation," explained Gregory Witkop, a former flight surgeon who is now a DARPA sleep research manager. He told Business Insider that during combat operations, that number might plummet closer to three hours a night.
Lack of sleep can have disastrous consequences for the DoD. A 2024 government watchdog report found that lack of sleep contributed to military safety mishaps and multiple deaths. Some troops have cited long work hours and shoddy barracks mattresses as obstacles to better sleep.
That's why Witkop wants to know if his agency can help someone who only slept three hours feel like they got much more sleep.
"We're trying to again make a normal sleep cycle more efficient so that we are able to get all of the benefits from both parts of sleep every night," he recently told BI, referring to the different depths of sleep, REM and non-REM. DARPA doesn't conduct its own research, but it is setting priorities for contracted universities and companies to look into tackling troop sleep troubles.
For Witkop, maximizing sleep success might look something like a headband or cap that emits targeted light waves to parts of an infantryman's brain while sleeping. Such waves would theoretically boost the benefits of even just three hours of sleep to hopefully feel more like five hours of rest.
"One of the things that is, I think, under-appreciated about sleep in particular, is that we kind of think of it as something that's a 'nice to have', as opposed to a 'need to have'," Witkop said.
Scientists are still trying to understand why people even sleep, Witkop said, noting that it doesn't make much sense from an evolutionary point of view to be defenseless for so many hours. But the military has long recognized sleep's importance for troops, despite many not getting enough of it.
It "literally heals the brain every single night," he said, adding that chronic lack of sleep can contribute to elevated risks of suicide, PTSD, and other health issues.
It's not a problem limited to military servicemembers. Most Americans are running on fumes, with sleeplessness exacerbated by televisions and cell phones in bedrooms. But most Americans aren't trying to fly an aerial tanker, a flying gas station for complex aerial refueling maneuvers, or put fire down range without accidentally hitting their comrades.
Troops need to be well rested, Witkop said, or at least feel like it.
But DARPA's not just focused on getting troops better rest. The research arm also wants to know how it can help troops like pilots, who regularly fly in the middle of the night or pull long combat hours, stay awake.
Anyone who has ever driven home late at night fueled by coffee knows the feeling of trying to fall asleep after arriving but still being wired in bed thanks to caffeine, said Pedro Irazoqui, who oversees another DARPA sleep research project. That's especially true for pilots, one of Irazoqui's target populations for a different type of headband-type device.
"Think of a pilot flying 10 to 20 hours, and having to stay awake and pilot an aircraft," he said. "And then at the end of that long flight, having to land that aircraft maybe not under ideal conditions."
"You want them to be as awake and alert as they possibly can be," he said.
What often ends up happening, Irazoqui said, is that pilots will chug an energy drink just before their final approach to make sure they're locked in, leading to more caffeine the next day to again fight fatigue again while flying.
"That's not safe, and that's not good for quality of life," he said.
That's why he wants to help pilots stay awake with another form of light therapy, infrared light, making them feel as if they have had a jolt from an energy drink.
But when that light is switched off, stimulation could cease immediately, allowing the pilot to rapidly transition to sleep unaffected by stimulants.
"What we wanted to do is to help the warfighter be as awake and alert as possible with as few side effects as possible," Irazoqui said.
"Being able to turn it off is as important as being able to turn it on in the right place at the right time," he added, explaining that "we really want to give them that focused decision-making at the key moment where they need it, and then let them turn off and relax and unwind."
