Getting eight hours of shut-eye has been the advice that most people were given by their parents and grandparents.
But it is also known that as we age, having eight hours of uninterrupted sleep becomes more of a challenge.
Now the ‘perfect’ amount of time asleep has been reduced to seven hours, according to researchers from Cambridge University in England and Fudan University in Shanghai.
The boffins once again looked at data from nearly 500,000 adults, aged between 38 and 73, from the UK Biobank, a government-funded long-term study.
The researchers found both insufficient and excessive sleep duration contributed to impaired cognitive performance, such as processing speed, visual attention, memory and problem-solving skills.
Overall, seven hours of sleep per night was deemed to be the optimal amount of sleep for cognitive performance, but also for good mental health, with people experiencing more symptoms of anxiety and depression and worse overall wellbeing if they reported sleeping for longer or shorter durations.
“While we can’t say conclusively that too little or too much sleep causes cognitive problems, our analysis looking at individuals over a longer period of time appears to support this idea. But the reasons why older people have poorer sleep appear to be complex, influenced by a combination of our genetic makeup and the structure of our brains,” said Professor Jianfeng Feng from Fudan University.
Proof once again that getting a good night’s sleep is important at all stages of life.
