According to a study, a bad mood or a bad night’s sleep can influence the brain for up to two weeks.
Researchers discovered that our brains do not respond to daily life in immediate, isolated bursts, but rather evolve in response to our lifestyle over time.
This suggests that a workout or a restless night’s sleep from last week can still affect your attention, cognition and memory well into the following week, they said.
As part of an unusual long-term study, scientists tracked a person’s brain and behavior for five months using scans and data from wearable devices and smartphones.
They found that things like concentration were affected by problems like poor sleep, but that this lasted less than a week.
Researchers have discovered that our brains do not respond to daily life in immediate, isolated bursts, but rather evolve in response to our lifestyle over time.
Lack of sleep can lead to obesity, memory loss, diabetes, heart disease, intense and unstable emotions, impaired learning ability, and a reduced immune response, leaving you vulnerable to disease.
However, areas linked to attention and memory could be affected for up to 15 days by past behaviors.
The analysis revealed that exercise had a positive and lasting impact on the way brain regions interact, meaning it could improve memory and cognition for up to two weeks.
Even very subtle changes in mood and heart rate left lasting traces for up to 15 days, the team said.
The study, published in the journal Plos Biology, was carried out by researchers from Aalto University and the University of Oulu, both in Finland.
“Every day we wake up a slightly different person, as our mental states are influenced by many external factors,” they wrote.
«The quality of sleep, the level of physical activity and the nature of our social interactions affect the state of our brain on different time scales.
«These time scales range from milliseconds to seconds, minutes and days.
«Our findings suggest that behavioral, physiological and lifestyle factors correlate with brain connectivity on different time scales, both short-term (less than seven days) and long-term, up to two weeks.
‘Our results demonstrate that we should not study brain connectivity in isolation, but rather recognize its interdependence with environmental dynamics, lifestyle changes and short-term fluctuations, such as transient illnesses or restless sleep.
“These results reflect a long and sustained relationship between external factors and neuronal processes.”
The team said their research is unusual because few brain studies involve detailed monitoring over days and weeks.
Lead researcher Ana Triana, who was also the subject of the study, said: “We wanted to go beyond isolated events.
‘Our behavior and mental states are constantly shaped by our environment and experiences. However, we know little about the response of brain functional connectivity to environmental, physiological, and behavioral changes on different time scales, from days to months.
‘We must bring data from daily life to the laboratory to see the full picture of how our habits shape the brain.
“Linking brain activity to physiological and environmental data could revolutionize personalized healthcare, opening doors to earlier interventions and better outcomes.”