Good grief. It almost makes me question what information is missing from the abstract since I don't know how one can consistently run on fumes without it affecting cognition, productivity or decision making.
Anecdotal, but I spent years not sleeping through university and sleeping in airports or on the train. Studied engineering and did a lot of hackathons and events and stuff. I figured out then that I didn't need full cognition or excellent decision making. I needed more hours cranking out work. I spent years sleeping just a few hours and often not sleeping on Saturday at all.
I do a lot less of that now as work never has 2AM deadlines but it is as though I am permanently in that 80% functionality state. I never felt that I got out of that state. I have never regained my ability to be detail oriented. I am still reliant on the crutches of spell check and Grammarly and my IDE to make sure I don't do something stupid. I use task lists for every little thing in my day.
So it is not that it does not impact cognition (at least in my case), it is that you get used to that impaired state and can't find a way back.
Only a year and a half removed from that, so maybe it takes more time, but I still feel heavily optimized for output over quality, even though that is no longer needed.
My baseline cognition was already impacted. More sleep just did not repair it.
It is noted in many sleep science studies that you cannot “recoup” lost sleep so this is plausible.
I personally would always put more faith in someone who carefully checks their work than someone who thinks they don't need to. The second person is making mistakes and just doesn't realize it.
If you feel this has impacted your life to the point where you need to hide your identity, maybe you should try therapy or a medical examination. Or just get more sleep
I cannot tell you if a change in my sleeping habits was the result of all that, if it has been a coincidence or if it preceded any improvements - but it certainly didn’t hurt the process.
Today, I don’t need therapy or medication anymore, can focus good enough on my work and in the stories my significant other tells me. I don’t get nervous anymore anytime I have to wait in a line, I do fewer mistakes, I can read a book and feel less bored, more happy. It’s something I had to learn, but I needed some help with that. It’s worth a try!
Today, I also realize a significant decrease in performance and happiness if I get a single night of bad sleep. Before I knew how my days could really feel, I didn’t care about that - but I’m sure I had been impacted badly, nevertheless.
This is your first advice. Anyway, no need to get pedantic. Fact is you're carelessly suggesting the use of some pretty heavy and specific medicine, to someone you don't know, based on a few words of text he wrote on an anonymous internet forum.
My sleep was somewhat destroyed from having kids. Not that I was extremely underslept, but my brain somehow stopped sleeping deeply it felt like. I awoke from every minute sound the kids made.
Today theyr'e 7 and 9 and I still wake from silly sounds.. Some sounds the kids make is like driving a knife through my ears. It is getting better but still...
The upside from this is now I don't need anywhwre near 8 hours of sleep anymore! 7 hours is almost too much, 6 works perfectly most of the time. 5 hours though is when I get into zombie-mode during daytime.
So I am not surprised if merely looking at sleep amounts fails to explain differences.