January 4, 2021

Below is a lesson from Fast Company on how much sleep you need to avoid cognitive decline, as well as our key learnings.

The Blue Courage team is dedicated to continual learning and growth.  We have adopted a concept from Simon Sinek’s Start With Why team called “Learn, Share, Grow”.  We are constantly finding great articles, videos, and readings that have so much learning.  As we learn new and great things, this new knowledge should be shared for everyone to then grow from.

This is exactly how much sleep you need to avoid cognitive decline, says JAMA study

BY ARIANNE COHEN

You’ve heard it before: Too little sleep makes you exhausted, dumb, and sad. But a simple nap will snap you right back into your smart, peppy self, right?

A new JAMA study says nope, because low sleep correlates with lower cognitive function—the permanent kind. That sound you hear is tired people everywhere muttering oh *%$&.

Cohorts of 28,756 people in China and the U.K. reported their nightly sleep hours and underwent cognitive testing, and then repeated the process four years later. All were over age 45. The resulting curve is a U-shape centered around seven hours of sleep: People who get less or more sleep have lower cognitive functioning. And people who reported sleeping around four hours or over 10 hours per night showed not just lower functioning, but also speedier cognitive decline. Agh.

Continue Reading Here.

Key Learnings:

• Low sleep correlates with lower cognitive function—the permanent kind
• 28,756 people reported their nightly sleep hours and underwent cognitive testing, and then repeated the process four years later. Findings:
• The resulting curve is a U-shape centered around seven hours of sleep: People who get less or more sleep have lower cognitive functioning. And people who reported sleeping around four hours or over 10 hours per night showed not just lower functioning, but also speedier cognitive decline.
• The calling card of dementia is cognitive decline, which often appears long before diagnosis