People who come alive in the evening and go to bed late decline faster in terms of thinking, learning, and perception than morning people. You can partly influence this by eating healthily, among other things. But working against your sleep rhythm? According to researchers, that’s no use.
Evening people decline cognitively faster than morning people, is the conclusion of a new study from the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG).
23,798 people participated in the study. They had to fill out questionnaires about their sleeping times, among other things. Researchers looked at the cognitive abilities of these people over a period of ten years.
It turned out that people who come alive in the evening scored worse on cognitive tests after ten years than people who start their day fresh in the morning.
This is partly because unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating occur more often in the evening. That behavior explains 25 percent of the risk of cognitive decline.
Biological clock is difficult to adjust
It is striking that the difference in cognition was mainly observed in higher educated people. According to the researchers, this probably has to do with their sleep rhythm. Higher educated people often have to go to work early, which means they often sleep short and their brains get too little rest.
According to researcher Ana Wenzler, you can do little about your biological clock. “You can try to go to sleep earlier, but if your body does not yet produce sleep hormone, it will not work: your body simply does not want to sleep yet.”
Working against your rhythm is therefore of little use. Your biological clock can change during your life. For example, children are morning people, but that changes when they reach puberty. Many adolescents are evening people. Around the age of twenty, most people shift back towards the morning and around their fortieth many people are early birds again.
Wenzler emphasizes that this certainly does not apply to everyone. But according to the researcher, it would be good if employers took evening people into account more. “For example, by giving them the opportunity to start later.”
Future research into preventing dementia
Getting good nights is therefore better, but those are difficult to schedule. You can make sure that you live a healthy life. Not smoking, not drinking alcohol and eating healthy contributes to good cognition.
The study does not yet provide insight into the chance of dementia, but it does form a lead-up to future research into the prevention of the disease. “A faster cognitive decline in middle age does not necessarily mean that you have a greater chance of dementia,” Wenzler explains. “The fact is that your brains decline after your fortieth. We are investigating in which people this goes faster, and which lifestyle or other factors can reduce the chance of dementia.”
After further research, she hopes to come up with tips on how to reduce the chance of dementia.