Getting too much sleep might not be as good for your brain as it sounds, especially if you have depression. A new study led by UT Health San Antonio found that sleeping nine or more hours a night is linked to worse cognitive performance, particularly in people with depressive symptoms.
Researchers looked at data from 1,853 participants, aged 27 to 85, in the Framingham Heart Study — a long-running research project following the health of residents in Framingham, Massachusetts. All participants were free of dementia and stroke.
“Also, long-sleepers were more likely to report symptoms of depression,” said Vanessa Young, MS, clinical research project manager at the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio.
“Sleep may be a modifiable risk for cognitive decline in people with depression.”
“Long but not short sleep duration was associated with poorer global cognition and specific cognitive abilities like memory, visuospatial skills and executive functions,”
said Sudha Seshadri, founding director of the Biggs Institute and senior author of the study. “These associations were stronger in people with depressive symptoms, regardless of antidepressant usage.”
The study highlights how too little and too much sleep can negatively affect brain function, particularly in memory, attention, and decision-making. Experts recommend 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night to protect brain health.
Since depression often overlaps with sleep issues, with 90% of people with depression reporting sleep problems, the researchers wanted to see how depression might influence the sleep-cognition link.
Participants were grouped by their depression status and use of antidepressants. The study found that those who slept longer and had depressive symptoms showed the most cognitive decline. The effect was weaker but still present in people without depression. Interestingly, people who took antidepressants but had no current depressive symptoms didn’t show the same cognitive decline.
“Future longitudinal studies including large-scale, multi-modal approaches are needed to further elucidate the temporal relationship between sleep disturbances and cognitive changes,” the researchers said.
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The post Can Sleeping Too Much Harm Your Mental Health? first appeared on MQ Mental Health Research.
