UO researchers have shown, on an international scale, that six to nine hours of quality sleep at a time is vital for daily thinking effectiveness, especially for middle-aged or older people.

They also found, in a study of more than 30,000 people in six nations, that sleeping longer than nine hours on a regular basis hampers cognition similarly to too little sleep.

The findings appeared in the June issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. They also are the first to emerge from the longitudinal Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE), a project being led by UO anthropologist J. Josh Snodgrass and supported by the National Institutes of Health and World Health Organization.

Read more about what the study's lead author, UO doctoral student Theresa E. Gildner, found in the story "Sleep quality and duration improve cognition in aging populations."

- by Jim Barlow, Public Affairs Communications