According to a recent study, nocturnal alertness improves after exposure to milliseconds of bright light flashes. Results indicate that subjective sleepiness decreased and objective night time alertness improved after participants received a two-millisecond pulse of bright light once per minute for 60 minutes.
Flash exposure, as compared with darkness, elicited significant improvement in self-rated alertness and a significant 57-millisecond improvement in median reaction time on the auditory Psychomotor Vigilance Test, compared with no significant improvement after 60 minutes of darkness. This was accompanied by significant changes in the faster frequencies of the EEG following exposure to the flashes.
The randomized crossover study involved seven people who were tested two times, with the sessions separated by more than two weeks. In each testing condition they were wakened two hours after their typical bedtime for stimulus administration. Once they were exposed to an hour of darkness, and once they were exposed to a total of 120 milliseconds of bright light pulses during an hour of darkness. Vigilance was measured immediately before and at the end of the 60-minute stimulus.
This could prove to be very useful for night shift workers.
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