Here's how your bedtime affects your brain, according to the world's largest sleep study

If you accidentally stayed up all night thanks to a new season of Criminal minds on Netflix, then you know that your brain is not doing well without having its beauty sleep. But what you could do not Realize how your bedtime affects your brain on a regular basis, not just on occasional sleepless nights. According to a new study, your nighttime routine can affect your critical thinking and thinking, and if you do not get your eyes closed, your bedtime could even cause your brain to function as if it were older than it is. 'was really. . In other words, if you have lost your sleep, it is high time that you get this order without delay.

According to ScienceDaily, the "world's largest sleep study" was recently published in TO SLEEP – which is the official journal of the Sleep Research Society – which has revealed many fascinating details about how your sleep schedule affects your brain health. The study itself lasted more than a year and brought together 40,000 participants from around the world. The researchers, neuroscientists at the Brain and Mind Institute of Western University, have studied the incidence of the number of hours of sleep that you sleep each night on brain function. And even taking into account the factors that could influence the results of the study, such as the medications that a participant was taking or his level of education, the results were clear: if you want your brain works properly, you must perform some timekeeping. hours of sleep each night – but not also a lot.

"We really wanted to capture the sleep habits of people around the world," said Adrian Owen, a researcher at Western University and author of the study, in a statement released by ScienceDaily. "Obviously, many small sleep studies were conducted in labs, but we wanted to know what sleep was like in the real world."

Surprisingly, one of the main conclusions of the study was that sleep is less or more that the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep lead to signs of cognitive impairment – in other words, elements such as reasoning and verbal skills have been significantly (and negatively) affected by too much or too little sleep. And get this: Sleeping less than four hours a night, according to the study, was equivalent to aging your brain almost nine years.

That said, if you think your current sleep schedule could be improved, it's never too late to start working on it. Although, according to the National Sleep Foundation, maintaining a healthy sleep schedule Is take some adjustments, depending on where you are right now. If your goal is to go to bed earlier to have more time to rest, the foundation suggests you do not at once move your bedtime a few hours. Instead, says the National Sleep Foundation, teach your body to gradually adapt to this new schedule by shifting your routine in 15-minute increments. For example, if you usually fall asleep at midnight, start by hitting the pillow at 11:45 pm. the first night, then progress from there.

However, Dr. Rita Aouad, a sleep medicine specialist and psychiatrist at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University, says you probably should not go to bedtime. also a lot. "Getting to bed too early can disrupt your sleep schedule by making you wake up in the middle of the night (sleep fragmentation) or too early the next morning," she told Elite Daily by email. It might take some trial and error to find a bedtime that suits your body and your schedule, but rest assured, it's not an impossible feat.

As for your healthier sleep schedule, Dr. Aouad said that your workout routine could also play a role. "Exercise as much as you can for 20 to 30 minutes a day in the morning or afternoon, but avoid exercising too close to bedtime," she told Elite Daily. And how does killing him in the gym help you fall asleep in the night? Well, it's not just This exercise gets you tired and makes you sleepy afterwards. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, increasing your heart rate "increases the amount of slow-wave sleep you get," which is important because, according to the institution, slow-wave sleep is the kind of deep sleep that allows your brain to rest and recover from the day.

But if you come can not seems to have the brain go out at the end of the day, try writing in a diary or diary before finishing your bedtime routine, Dr. Aouad suggests. "Do not take your worries to bed," she warns. "Write down your worries and allow time for you later." I know that for me personally, building a to-do list for the next day just before going to bed helps my mind to know that he can relax. I mamore a lot easier knowing that I do not have to worry about forgetting something important.

At the end of the day (get it?), Turn off Netflix at a reasonable time and try to go to bed at about the same time each night. This will help your brain function well enough for you to start solving the cases Law and Order: SVU faster than detectives can.