2026.08.03

Kuri Takahashi, Researcher in the Abe Lab, Receives the Best Presentation Award at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Sleep Research

Kuri Takahashi, a researcher in the Abe Lab at the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine (WPI-IIIS), University of Tsukuba, received the Best Presentation Award for his oral presentation at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Sleep Research (JSSR), held on July 23–24, 2026, at Makuhari Messe in Chiba.

Presentation title: “Effects of Short Daytime Nap using an Automatic Awakening Device on Esports Performance“

It is known that waking a person nine minutes after they reach sleep stage N2 produces the greatest improvement in cognitive performance for the shortest possible nap duration. However, detecting a specific sleep stage requires measuring the sleep electroencephalogram (EEG), and an examiner must determine the sleep stage in real time and wake the person manually — making the technique difficult to implement outside a laboratory setting. To address this challenge, the Abe Lab has developed a device that uses an earphone-type blood-flow sensor to prompt awakening nine minutes after the onset of N2.

This study focused on e-sports, a domain that demands high performance. Delayed sleep phase and reduced sleep quality have been reported among e-sports athletes (Monma et al., 2026), and these athletes are known to consume caffeine on a daily basis to cope with insufficient sleep. However, caffeine intake carries risks to sleep and physical health, including reduced nighttime sleep quality and the development of caffeine tolerance.

As a way to verify a performance-enhancing method that could serve as an alternative to caffeine, this study used the automated wake-up device to examine the effects of a short daytime nap on e-sports performance. The results demonstrated that a short daytime nap, with awakening timed optimally by the device, leads to improved e-sports performance. This study proposes automated short naps of this kind as a new approach to enhancing performance, both in e-sports and beyond.

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