Do Not Pass Go: How Board Games Can Reveal Just How Sleep Deprived You Are

— -- In the workplace, it’s a badge of honor to sleep less and do more. All too often, we ignore the deleterious effects of not sleeping the recommended 8 hours per night in order to keep up with life.

But if we are so driven by productivity, shouldn’t we be more in tune with how sleep deprivation affects our neurocognitive function –- our ability to think?

To illuminate the issue, Dan Childs, Managing Editor of the ABC News Medical Unit, eschewed sleep for 49 hours so America could watch as his ability to critically think and function diminished over two grueling days.

During his time in a sleep lab, we put Dan through a series of tasks that everyone can relate to. He put his tired mind up against challenges that require emotional stamina, strategy, innovation and courage: family board games.

Now, before you dust off the kitchen table and prepare for classic board game night, let’s explore examples of specific, sleep dependent, mental skills that are needed for victory.

Chess – Executive Function

“Executive function” is an umbrella term that encompasses our ability to plan and act, in the face of options, risks, and possibilities. This ability, governed by your brain’s frontal lobe, takes a hit when you haven’t slept, especially if you’re an adolescent.

Efficient chess play requires a healthy dose of executive function, and possibly some innate brilliance. Can you imagine willingly sending pawns into martyrdom, using knights to infiltrate enemy lines, and defending thy queen while you’re punch-drunk from an all-nighter? Try it and it’ll be a plastic blood bath.

Monopoly – Decision Making and Patience

Our brain has the uncanny ability to help you navigate multiple options and choose the best route to maximize gain. Your “greedy brain” needs sleep to negotiate life-altering decisions so imagine your Monopoly-playing skills if you’re up till dawn. Try managing multiple hotel properties, deciding between section-8 Baltic Avenue or overpriced Park Place, all while trying to pass “Go”, without sleep. I smell bankruptcy dealt to you by Parker Brothers.

Simon Says – Working Memory

Memory is clutch when it comes to the workplace. The average job pulls the most from your brain’s ability to integrate new information and then perform tasks from mental blueprints. Known as “working memory”, this skill is weakened by lack of sleep. Neuroscientists actually proved this, using an experiment, nearly identical, to the ominous, daunting, colored-light challenge “Simon Says”. In the workplace or at your game table, sleep deprivation will lead to an increase in working-memory errors.Sleepy? Whip out the electronic, neuroscientist tool, and see how quickly you fail.

The Game of Life – Emotional Stability

The drama-queen center of your brain is your amygdala, which can send you into tantrums and tears if you’re sleep deprived. Ever have a sleepless night and feel like crying and laughing at the same time? Your brain needs rest to help you process emotions into rational actions so no sleep equals more drama. Now imagine playing The Game of Life and pulling the Earthquake-damaged home and a low paying salary when you’re post all-nighter. I personally couldn’t handle the injustice and may throw the game board at my well-rested competitors.

Twister – Postural Balance

Fortunately, when we’re exhausted, we aren’t usually trying to put our postural balance to test. Unless you’re at a morning-after party and playing a rowdy game of Twister. Your balance will be stunted and while you’re maneuvering bodies trying to get your right hand on red, while keeping your left foot on yellow, you’ll be sorry you couldn’t count sheep.

Picture Memory – Recognition Memory

There are some games that you will always be able to own your children at. Memory is one of them and your hippocampus will help you. Yet if you stayed up all night watching Net-Flix, your little one may just pair the blue fish and beach balls together faster than you can. Your recall and memory span will be reeling just as much as your ego.

Operation – Fine Motor Skills

What’s most disturbing about this pairing is the game, Operation, is a take on surgery, which is a field ridden with sleep deprivation. Even if you rehearse a motor task dozens of times, your brain needs sleep to commit fine skills to memory. But hey, you’re a rebel, you skipped sleep and it’s time to play Operation. Bad news: in this scenario, you’re more at risk of getting “buzzed” while trying to remove the water pail (“Water on the Knee”) or extricating the ice cream cone, (“Charley Horse”). Board game translation? Medical malpractice lawsuit.

So what’s the moral of the board-game-meets-insomniac story? Sleep has immediate effects on the higher order mental processing we rely on, every day. Ironically, these mental skills are necessary for workplace performance which is the often the culprit of sleep deprivation. So do yourself and all willful challengers a favor and rest before game day.

Dr. Alok Patel is a clinical instructor of Pediatrics at Columbia University and at the Morgan-Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.