Sleep can affect how you walk, a new study says

If you do not sleep well or get enough sleep, you may not have known the entire impact on your body. If you feel exhausted for sleep, you may have headaches and may easily feel anxious or nervous.

A new study sheds light on the bond of lack of eye closed and walking, thus affecting the ability to walk, avoid obstacles, and maintain balance.

The results show that walking is not an automatic process and that it can be influenced by sleep,” study author Hermano Crebs, a professor of neurology at Maryland University Medical School, said in a statement.

“Ideally, all should sleep eight hours per night,” said Crebs, who is also a leading research scientist at the Institute of Technology's Mechanical Engineering Department in Massachusetts. “But if we can't, then we have to compensate as much and as regularly as we can”.

Scientists thought that walking was a fully automatic process. Research has now shown it's not. Our brain reacts to visual signs or sounds on the road, adjusting its course to slow down or accelerate as needed. In the case of music, for example, we can adjust our pace to keep pace without realizing it.

The new study, published in Scientific Reports, focused on students at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. The students kept a sleep tracker for 14 days to record sleep and wake up; on average, they slept about six hours a night.

Later, he was asked to proceed with the pace of a metronomi (the equipment used by musicians marking time at a chosen pace). The researchers noted that students who had slept better successfully performed the task, while others performed worse overall.

The study is an important message for the need for sleep, especially for those working in industries in which shift work is common or where uncontrolled walking can be dangerous.

Ten minutes of walking, cycling, or other aerobic exercise can drastically improve the quality of sleep.