London: A recent study found that regular exercise and adequate sleep can help maintain mental health in older adults.
According to research, people who were more active, meaning they exercised regularly, but slept less than six hours on average, had a faster decline in cognitive ability. After 10 years, their mental performance was comparable to that of their peers who remained inactive at their age.
Dr Mikaela Bloomberg, from the University College London (UCL) Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare, lead author of the study, said: “Our study suggests that we need adequate sleep to reap the full benefits of physical and mental activity. This shows how important it is to consider sleep and physical activity together when thinking about mental health.
“To find out how sleep and physical activity can work together to affect mental function and how they are connected, we did research and we were surprised that just regular physical activity over a long period of time,” said Dr. Bloomberg. Based on the best mental abilities may not be enough. Proper sleep is very important for this.
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