A study recently published in the journal — Nature Aging – found that approximately seven hours is the optimal sleep duration for the middle-aged and elderly.
A Chinese research team from Fudan University studied about 500,000 participants from the UK Biobank,
aged 38 to 73.
They identified a nonlinear association between sleep duration and cognition and mental health.
Further analysis showed that both insufficient and excessive sleep durations were strongly associated with
decline in their cognition, while stable sleep duration led to better cognitive ability and mental health.
The study suggested that a regular sleep duration of seven hours can improve both the physical and mental health of the middle-aged and elderly, said Feng Jianfeng at the team.
