Forget catching up on the weekend! Research shows that the impact of a poor night’s sleep can last up to TWO WEEKS

According to a study, a bad mood or poor sleep can affect your brain for up to two weeks.

Researchers discovered that our brains do not respond to everyday life in immediate, isolated bursts, but instead evolve over time in response to our lifestyle.

This suggests that a workout or restless night’s sleep last week can still affect your attention, cognition and memory well into the next week, they said.

As part of an unusual, long-term study, scientists monitored one person’s brain and behavior for five months using scans and data from wearable devices and smartphones.

They found that things like focus were affected by poor sleep, for example, but that this lasted for less than a week.

Lack of sleep can lead to obesity, memory loss, diabetes, heart disease, heightened and unstable emotions, reduced learning ability and a reduced immune response, leaving you vulnerable to disease

However, areas related to attention and memory can be affected by past behavior for up to 15 days.

Analysis found that exercise had a lasting, positive impact on the way brain areas interacted, meaning it could boost memory and cognition for up to two weeks.

Even very subtle shifts in mood and heart rate left a lasting impression for up to 15 days, the team said.

The study, published in the journal Plos Biology, was conducted by researchers from Aalto University and the University of Oulu, both in Finland.

“Every day we wake up as a slightly different person, because our mental state is influenced by many external factors,” they wrote.

‘The quality of sleep, the level of physical activity and the nature of our social interactions all influence the state of our brains on different timescales.

‘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 timescales, both in the short term – less than seven days – and in the longer term, up to two weeks.

‘Our results show 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-term and persistent relationship between external factors and neural processes.’

The team said their research is unusual because few brain studies involve detailed monitoring over days and weeks.

Research leader Ana Triana, who was also the subject of the study, said: ‘We wanted to go beyond isolated events.

‘Our behavior and mental state are constantly shaped by our environment and experiences. Yet we know little about the response of functional brain connectivity to environmental, physiological, and behavioral changes on different time scales, from days to months.

‘We need to bring data from everyday life into the laboratory to get a full picture of how our habits shape the brain.

‘Linking brain activity to physiological and environmental data could revolutionize personalized healthcare, opening doors for earlier interventions and better outcomes.’