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An inspiring new study indicates that just 20 minutes of moderate intensity exercise can help restore brain function after experiencing the impact of poor sleep, according to UK scientists. Scientists found that mental performance improves in all people no matter their sleep status or oxygen levels.
Recent research shows that 40 percent of the population does not get sufficient sleep each night, increasing the risks for cardiovascular disease, obesity, neurodegenerative disorders and depression.
University of Portsmouth researchers suggest that insufficient sleep can compromise cognitive performance (CP), impacting your attention span, judgement and emotional state. Their new study explored how sleep, oxygen levels and exercise affect our ability to perform mental tasks.
“From prior research, exercise has been shown to improve or maintain cognitive performance even when oxygen levels drop; but this study is the first one to suggest it improves it when combined with full or partial sleep deprivation or hypoxia,” according to Dr. Joe Costello from the School of Sport, Health & Exercise Science (SHES) at the University.
“These findings add significantly to what is already known about the relationship between exercise and various stressors and movement – as medicine for both body and brain – and stress relief.”
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To obtain their results, the team conducted two experiments involving 12 participants each. For the first experiment, each person was allowed only five hours of sleep over three nights before performing seven tasks at rest or while cycling and rating their level of sleepiness and mood before beginning these tasks.
In the second experiment, participants went a full night without sleep before entering an environment with low oxygen concentration levels to help researchers rule out oxygenation as a cause for any changes they observed in sleep patterns or behavior.
Sleep deprivation is often compounded with other stressors. For instance, traveling to high altitude may disrupt one’s sleeping pattern,” according to co-lead author Thomas Williams from the Extreme Environments Research Group at the University.
“One potential explanation for why exercise improves cognitive performance may lie with its impact on cerebral blood flow and oxygenation, yet our studies show that participants still performed cognitive tasks better when performing it in conditions with reduced oxygen.
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All participants in both studies experienced an increase in cognitive performance after only 20 minutes of cycling.
“Since exercise was intended as a positive intervention, we decided to implement a moderate intensity program based on existing literature,” states Dr. Costello. “Any longer or harder exercise may have increased negative consequences and become itself a source of stressors.”
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The paper published in Physiology and Behavior suggests that improvements might be due to changes to brain-regulating hormone levels as well as various psychophysiological factors like cerebral blood flow, arousal levels and motivation.
These findings indicate that cognitive performance is not solely dependent upon the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) area of the brain, although it plays an integral part in carrying out tasks.
“The PFC is highly sensitive to its neurochemical environment and vulnerable to stress,” states Juan Ignacio Badariotti from the University’s Department of Psychology. It plays a pivotal role in our thoughts, actions and emotions and is considered a core part of the brain associated with executive functions.
“Our findings indicate that the mechanisms underlying CP may not be localised in this region alone; instead we must consider it the result of multiple coordinated processes spread throughout both cortical and subcortical regions.”
