The British study examined some 500,000 adults between the ages of 38 and 73. The results showed that both too much and too little sleep could be linked to poor cognitive performance and reduced mental health, especially depression and anxiety. In addition, getting about the same amount of sleep every night would also have a positive impact on your health. Finally, they arrived at the ideal amount of sleep for 38+ people: about seven hours of sleep.
Just as important as sport
There were visible negative effects with more than seven hours of sleep. In The Guardian, Cambridge University Department of Psychiatry Professor Barbara Sahakian emphasizes that adequate sleep is crucial for any age group, but becomes even more important as we get older: “It’s just as important as exercising.”
Specifically, the impact of poor sleep was evident in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center. For example, too much or too little sleep is linked to a smaller brain volume. For example, those who slept for seven hours did better on cognitive tests that measured processing speed, visual attention, memory and problem-solving thinking.
Cause
The negative impact of too little sleep is said to be due to the disruption in the waves of deep and light sleep, which are said to be very important for memory. The brain would also be less able to destroy toxins. But the cause of the negative impact of too much sleep is less clear to the scientists.
Finally, it is emphasized that a causal relationship between seven hours of sleep and brain disorders has not yet been established, as irregular sleep patterns can be caused by many factors.