New study: People who sleep late at night may have better mental function

British Scientists™ People who sleep late at night may have better cognitive function than those who go to bed early, they argue.

After studying thousands of volunteers, they found that Those who are more physically and mentally active late in the evening perform better on cognitive ability tests.

The study also found that sleep duration also matters. Volunteers who slept between 7 and 9 hours each night performed better on tests that assessed them:

• Intelligence
• Logical thinking
• Reaction time
• Memory

The results of the study were published in the medical journal BMJ Public Health. The researchers studied data from 26,820 volunteers aged 53-86. Of these, 56% were women. All of them had been providing lifestyle and health data to the large medical database UK Biobank since 2006.

Those who were naturally more active in the evening tended to have “higher cognitive function” than those who were more active in the morning (morning types), the researchers found.

The intermediate types – those who didn't stay up too late but didn't go to bed too early either – also performed better on tests of cognitive ability.

The findings suggest that “temporal types are not just a personal preference. They can influence cognitive function,” said lead researcher Dr Raha West, from Imperial College London (ICL).

Sleep duration and lifestyle

But while it's important to understand your natural sleep patterns, it's equally important to pay attention to how long you sleep, she added.The combination of these two factors is vital for the brain to remain healthy and function as well as possible,” he said.

Indeed, the study found that those who slept less than 7 hours each night tended to perform worse on cognitive tests. Excessive sleep (more than 9 hours each night) was also detrimental.

The study also found that women, older age and certain health problems were associated with worse cognitive function. These problems included angina, hypertension and diabetes.

It turned out that excessive alcohol consumption and smoking also worsened cognitive functions. However, daily consumption of small amounts of alcohol was beneficial. In contrast, complete abstinence from alcohol and irregular consumption (once a week or month) were harmful.

As for smoking, the new study found what the researchers call a “paradoxical” finding that former smokers had better cognitive function than participants who had never smoked.

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