Quick decisions could be costing you—find out how to improve them.
Is your sleep schedule putting you at risk for type 2 diabetes?
A study reveals it is not when you use screens that affects sleep, but where you do it.
Sleep pattern linked to better ideas, focus and planning.
Sleep pattern linked to better ideas, focus and planning.
For a boost to your attention and creativity, keep your sleep regular, research suggests.
Regular sleep patterns are linked to higher focus, better ideas and stronger forward planning.
People who skimp on sleep, then ‘catch-up’ with more sleep later suffer cognitive problems.
The study was carried out on students studying interior design.
Dr Michael Scullin, a study author, explained:
“When completing term projects, students restrict sleep, then rebound on sleep, then repeat.
Major projects which call for numerous tasks and deadlines — more so than for tests — seem to contribute to sleep variability.”
Dr Scullin explained that the detrimental effects of irregular sleep were clear in their cognition:
“The more variability they showed in their night-to-night sleep, the worse their cognition declined across the week.
[…]Most students think they’re getting about four more hours of sleep each week than they actually are.”
Staying up late to complete projects is ingrained in the culture of interior design, as it is in other industries.
Dr Elise King, the study’s first author, said:
“Since the general public still doesn’t understand the profession of interior design, and mistakenly thinks we’re the same as decorators, there is a sense that you want to work harder and prove them wrong.
But recently, we’ve seen the consequences of that type of thinking: anxiety, depression and other mental health issues — and also the dangers of driving while sleep deprived.”
The study found students who kept more regular hours and habits had better ideas, focus and forward planning.
The pressures these students are under mirror the pressures in many different industries.
Dr King said:
“Projects are often lengthy, with final due dates looming weeks or months in the future.
The stress of juggling several projects, each with multiple deadlines, is likely to contribute to students’ tendency to cycle between several days of poor sleep leading up to a project due date, followed by a catch-up day with 10 or more sleep hours.”
The study was published in the Journal of Interior Design (King et al., 2017).
Almost one-in-ten regularly take this medication that is repeatedly linked to increased dementia risk.
Almost one-in-ten regularly take this medication that is repeatedly linked to increased dementia risk.
Another study has found a link between taking sleeping medication and increased dementia risk.
Taking sleep medication was linked to a 79 percent increased risk of dementia among white people.
The link was not seen in Black people, however, and Dr Yue Leng, the study’s first author, is not sure of the reason:
“Differences may be attributed to socio-economic status.
Black participants who have access to sleep medications might be a select group with high socio-economic status and, thus, greater cognitive reserve, making them less susceptible to dementia.
It’s also possible that some sleep medications were associated with a higher risk of dementia than others.”
The study included around 3,000 older people, average age 74, almost half of whom were Black.
The results showed that white people were three times as likely to take sleep medication as Black people.
White people were twice as likely to use benzodiazepines, like Halcion, Dalmane and Restoril and 7 times as likely to use “Z-drugs,” such as Ambien.
It may be that the types of drugs that white people take puts them at higher risk of dementia.
For sleep problems, other options than medication should be considered, said Dr Leng:
“The first step is to determine what kind of sleep issues patients are dealing with.
A sleep test may be required if sleep apnea is a possibility.
If insomnia is diagnosed, cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-i) is the first-line treatment.
If medication is to be used, melatonin might be a safer option, but we need more evidence to understand its long-term impact on health.”
The most common signs of sleep apnea, which affects 30 percent of older people, include:
Poor sleep is one of the common symptoms of dementia, so it may be that taking more sleep medications is a result rather than a cause of dementia.
However, other studies have controlled for this factor and still found a link between anti-anxiety and sleep medication and early death.
These find a dose-response effect: the more of the drugs people took, the higher their risk of death.
Many other studies have found a link between dementia and sleep.
People who sleep for too little or too long are at a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Indeed, people who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, one study found.
However, those who sleep for between 5.5 and 7.5 hours per night do not see declines in their cognitive health, even when suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.
Also, getting less REM sleep — the phase in which we dream — is linked to dementia.
→ Read on: Dementia: 9 Warning Signs Everyone Should Know
The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Leng et al., 2023).
Learn the counterintuitive way to extend your sleep by 30 minutes.
This technique helps healthcare professionals sleep soundly at night despite the stress they are under.
Around one-third of the population are night owls, with one-quarter preferring to rise early.
Avoiding caffeine makes little difference to sleep — but here are 11 things that do actually work.
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Struggling to get a good night's sleep?
With 30 percent of adults reporting short-term sleep issues, you’re not alone.
In surveys of what would improve people’s lives, a good night's sleep comes near the top of the list.
Poor sleep results in worse cognitive performance, including degraded memory, attention, performance and alertness.
So, here are 11 proven tips that will transform your sleep and leave you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.
Getting seven or eight hours is not enough, study finds.
Getting seven or eight hours is not enough, study finds.
Sleeping irregular hours increases the risk of depression, even if the total amount of sleep is sufficient, research finds.People who sleep and wake at different times are just as likely to suffer depression as those who do not get enough sleep overall.The findings highlight how important it is to maintain regular hours of sleep — on top of getting enough total sleep.Irregular sleep schedules may cause mental health problems by disrupting circadian rhythms, the researchers suggest.Circadian rhythms are the natural sleep-wake cycles of the body.Sleep may be more restorative when it coincides with melatonin production and lower core body temperature, which are two circadian rhythms which help the body prepare for sleep.For the study, researchers tracked over 2,100 young doctors as they battled through their first year of training after completing medical school.Trainee doctors are well-known to experience highly irregular work schedules, along with reduced time for sleep.Psychologists gathered information about their sleep and wake patterns through wearable devices.Ms Yu Fang, the study’s first author, said:“The advanced wearable technology allows us to study the behavioral and physiological factors of mental health, including sleep, at a much larger scale and more accurately than before, opening up an exciting field for us to explore.Our findings aim not only to guide self-management on sleep habits but also to inform institutional scheduling structures.”The results showed that trainee doctors with the most variable sleep schedules scored the highest on depression tests — they also had the worst moment-to-moment mood.Professor Srijan Sen, study co-author, said:
“These findings highlight sleep consistency as an underappreciated factor to target in depression and wellness.The work also underscores the potential of wearable devices in understanding important constructs relevant to health that we previously could not study at scale.”Parents of young children will be well aware of the damaging effects of irregular sleep schedules on mental health.Ms Fang joked:
“I also wish my 1-year-old could learn about these findings and only wake me up at 8:21 a.m. every day.”The study was published in the journal npj Digital Medicine (Fang et al., 2021).
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