How much sleep our brains need to function properly in the long run is revealed in a new study published in the journal Nature Agin..

Most of us have a hard time thinking after a bad night's sleep - feeling hazy and unable to carry out our normal responsibilities at school, university or work.. You may notice that you are not concentrating well or that your memory is out of order.. However, decades of poor sleep can potentially lead to cognitive decline, according to Pannochka, an online publication for girls and women aged 14 to 35.. net Poor sleep affects the mood and behavior of people, whether they are small children or the elderly. Sleep is an important component of maintaining the normal functioning of the brain.. The brain is reorganized and energized during sleep. In addition to removing toxic waste by-products and strengthening our immune systems, sleep is also key to “memory consolidation” during which new memory segments based on our experience are transferred to long-term memory..

Optimal quantity and quality of sleep allows us to have more energy and feel better.. It also allows us to develop our creativity and thinking..

Looking at children between the ages of three and 12 months, the researchers noted that better sleep is associated with better behavioral outcomes in the first year of life, such as the ability to adapt to new situations or effective regulation of emotions.. These are important early building blocks for cognition, including “cognitive flexibility” (our ability to easily change perspective), and are linked to well-being later in life..

Sleep regularity appears to be related to the brain's " This network includes areas important for cognitive functions such as the posterior cingulate cortex (which is deactivated during cognitive tasks), the parietal lobes (which process sensory information), and the frontal cortex (involved in planning and complex cognition)..

There are indications that in adolescents and young adults, poor sleep may be linked to changes in connectivity within this network.. This is important as our brains are still under development in late adolescence and early adolescence..

Thus, disturbances in this network can have negative effects on cognition, such as interfering with concentration and memory-based data processing, as well as more advanced cognitive processing..

Changes in sleep patterns, including difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, are important characteristics of the aging process.. These sleep disturbances are highly likely causes of cognitive decline and psychiatric disorders in the elderly..

“Our research aimed to better understand the relationship between sleep, cognition and well-being.. We found that both insufficient and excessive sleep contributed to cognitive decline in nearly 500,000 middle-aged and older adults from the UK Biobank. However, we have not studied children and adolescents, and because their brains are still developing, they may have different requirements for optimal sleep duration,” the scientists report..

The key finding was that seven hours of sleep per night was optimal, with more or less providing less cognitive and mental health benefits.. In fact, we found that people who slept the same amount, on average, performed better on cognitive tests (including processing speed, visual attention, and memory) than those who slept less or more.. People also need seven consecutive hours of sleep without too much fluctuation..

The relationship between sleep duration, cognitive ability and mental health has also been found to be mediated by genetics and brain structure.. The regions of the brain most affected by sleep deprivation have been noted to include the hippocampus, well known for its role in learning and memory, and frontal cortex regions involved in top-down emotion control..

But while sleep can affect our brains, it can also work the other way around.

. It is possible that age-related shrinkage of brain regions involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness contributes to sleep problems later in life.. This may, for example, reduce the production and secretion of melatonin, a hormone that helps control the sleep cycle, in older people.. This finding appears to support other evidence that there is an association between sleep duration and risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia..

medical-heal. en.