Too much sleep can hurt cognitive performance, especially for those with depression, UT Health San Antonio study finds - UT Health San Antonio
news.uthscsa.edu
Contact: Steven Lee, (210) 450-3823, [email protected] SAN ANTONIO, May 14, 2025 – There might be such a thing as getting too much of a good night’s sleep. Sleeping nine hours or more per night is associated with worse cognitive performance, which is even more the case for those with depression, a study led by researchers […]
  • LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de
    46·
    7 days ago

    Maybe I missed it in the article, but there was nothing about corellation vs causality?

    When you are depressed, you will often experience both tiredness and cognitive issues anyway. Which results in longer sleep times due to massive exhaustion from being always on your limit. So maybe they sleep longer because of the cognitive issues?

    • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      5·
      7 days ago

      Here’s a brief review of the study results. They were only looking for association, not causality:

      Long sleep was associated with reduced overall cognitive function (β ± standard error = −0.25 ± 0.07, p < 0.001), with strongest effects in those with depressive symptoms using (−0.74 ± 0.30, p = 0.017) and not using antidepressants (−0.60 ± 0.26, p = 0.024). Weaker but significant effects were observed in those without depressive symptoms (−0.18 ± 0.09, p = 0.044). No significant associations were observed in participants using antidepressants without depressive symptoms.

      **Weaker but significant effects were observed in those without depressive symptoms (−0.18 ± 0.09, p = 0.044). **

      This is certainly something to investigate further.