Appropriate Sleep Duration and Physical Activity Modulate Cognitive Improvement

Abstract

Sleep and brain work closely and are dependent on each other. Physical exercise is now known as an efficient anti depressive for both healthy brain and cognitive decline. But few specific studies show relation between combination of these two factors and the probability to develop, when people are aged less than forty years old, cognitive impairments such as mnesic pathology, memory encoding and retrieval of information. The aim of this study is to explore how cognitive impairments are linked to sleep duration and physical exercise; and if this difference is related to sociodemographic items that we choose. This case control epidemiological study was led by a questionnaire incorporating the shorter version of McNair Test, usually employed to detect cognitive complains. The questionnaire also included ten socio-demographic items and twenty-five other questions divided in three sections: the quality of sleep, levels of physical exercise and smoking (not investigated in the present study). We recruited one hundred participants through universities in Montreal, Canada. Our results demonstrated that the stress levels are comparable in men and women. Specifically the results showed that lack of sleep combined with insufficient physical activity radically affects the cognitive score for memory, attention and MLD. The McNair score indicated that the cognitive performance decreased for all these parameters. Physical exercise and good quality of sleep including an appropriate duration, contribute both to a better cognition performance for young adults (between 18 until 40 years old) until midlife.