Wrong amount of sleep can affect mental and physical health

SLEEPING too much or too little can have a far-reaching impact on our
well-being, a report by UK's The Daily Mail said.

Getting less or more than six to eight hours of sleep not only affects our
ability to think in the short-term, but also accelerates our cognitive
decline, according to a University of London study cited in the report.

Findings showed that the ideal amount of sleep is seven hours per night.

Scientists carried out six standard tests measuring one's memory, reasoning,
vocabulary, phonemic fluency, semantic fluency and global cognitive status
in a sample size of men and women in the later middle-age, The Daily Mail
said.

The study was conducted over a five-year period, to measure how changes in
sleep durations affected mental capabilities later on in life.

Results showed that those who slept longer tended to do worse in cognitive
tests, apart from short-term verbal memory.

On the other hand, those who were sleep deprived fared worse in terms of
performance, response times, errors of commission and attention or
concentration.

In addition, both men and women who slept less were more likely to suffer a
decrease in their capacity for reasoning and vocabulary.

The study further warned that the brain could be prematurely aged by up to
seven years, if there was insufficient sleep or too much of it.

Apart from affecting our cognitive abilities, sleeping too little or
oversleeping is also strongly associated with depression, according to The
Telegraph and WebMD.

More worrying is the fact that the wrong amount of sleep can manifest itself
in more tangible ways, with it affecting our physical well-being too.

A study by the University of Chicago found that individuals who regularly
sleep less than six hours a night have an impaired ability to process
glucose, which may lead to weight gain.

Also, a survey conducted by George Institute for Global Health revealed that
the lack of sleep is linked to cardiovascular disease, and, according to a
report by BBC, people getting less than six to eight hours of sleep a night
were 12 per cent more likely to die over a 25-year period.

Too much sleep can be detrimental too.

Oversleeping has been linked to a host of medical problems, including
diabetes, heart disease, and increased risk of death, said an article in
WebMD.