A recent study has indicated that sleeping longer or shorter than seven and half hours could cause a decline in cognitive performance.
As reported by DailyMail, the study suggested that seven and a half hours is the sweet spot to preserve the brain and offset Alzheimer’s disease.
The study originally published in the journal, Brain, said that people who sleep longer or shorter than seven and half hours are at risk of greater cognitive decline.
To come to this finding, the researchers studied 100 older adults with an average age of 75.
The 100 adults slept with a tiny monitor strapped to their foreheads most nights to measure brain activity during sleep for an average of four-and-a-half years.
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The scientists also took cerebrospinal fluid – found within the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord – to measure levels of Alzheimer’s proteins.
They (the researchers) noted that the cognitive scores declined for the groups that slept for what would be the equivalent of less than five and a half or more than seven and a half hours per night.
Speaking on the study, one of the researchers, Associate professor of neurology at Washington University Sleep Medicine Centre, Dr. Brendan Lucey said, “Our study suggests that there is a middle range, or ‘sweet spot’, for total sleep time where cognitive performance was stable over time.
“Short and long sleep times were associated with worse cognitive performance, perhaps due to insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality.”
Previous research has also suggested that memory loss, confusion, and being slower to learn new things, which are symptoms of Alzheimer’s, are linked to poor sleep.
