A new study recently published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet once again confirms the importance of sleep.
British scientists (yes, they are curious people) studied the cognitive functions of almost 9,000 people aged 50 and over for 10 years. They were interested in how different combinations of sleep habits and physical activity might affect people’s cognitive (thinking) functions over time.
Physical activity was counted if it was in line with WHO recommendations: that is, people reported that they played sports or moved at an average pace of at least 150,300 minutes per week, or actively at least 75,150 minutes per week .
The volunteers tested episodic memory: Study participants were given a list of 10 random words and asked to replay them immediately after reading and after 15 minutes. There was also a test for fluency, stress resistance and memory: it was necessary to name as many animals as possible in one minute.
What turned out: if the volunteers were physically active enough, but at the same time they slept less than 6 hours a day, their cognitive abilities were not different from the memory and intelligence of their peers who did not bother to be physically active, but they slept at least. 7 hours.
But if all the factors matched up (getting enough sleep and exercising), then this did, in fact, protect against cognitive decline with aging. These studies have shown this convincingly.
