According to two new studies, not getting enough sleep can make you feel five to ten years older than you really are.
“Sleep plays a causal role in people’s feelings of old age,” Leonie Balter, a sleep researcher at Stockholm University in Sweden and lead author of both studies, wrote in an email.
Health and mobility problems can also contribute to feeling geriatric early, but when it comes to sleep, staying asleep is the key to perceiving yourself as old, according to the studies, published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. .
“Lack of sleep causes a feeling of drowsiness. “Drowsiness is an important motivational state that makes us prioritize sleep and reduces our energy levels,” she said.
Lack of energy and motivation can certainly contribute to feeling older while limiting a person’s ability to remain physically and socially active, which contributes to feeling young, Balter said.
“Age can be understood in multiple dimensions: chronological, biological and subjective,” said sleep researcher Dr. Chang-Ho Yun, a professor of neurology at Seoul National University in Seongnam, South Korea, who was not involved in the studies. studies.
“Overall, these findings underscore the importance of getting enough sleep to maintain a youthful subjective age, potentially benefiting both physical and mental health,” Yun wrote in an email.
Feeling young is a good thing, according to science. It has been associated in studies with living longer, to lower rate of dementialess Depression and more positive traits. such as optimism, hope and resilience, and better physical and mental health.
In fact, people who feel younger than their age are more likely to have brains to match. TO Study June 2018 He found that older people who considered themselves younger had more gray matter in their brains and scored younger on brain age tests.
Two studies, similar results
Balter and his colleagues conducted two studies. One of them looked at how well 429 people aged 18 to 70 had slept in their own homes over the previous month. For every night of bad sleep during that time, people reported feeling about a quarter of a year older than their chronological age.
“Mood disturbances and feelings of fatigue also contribute to the subjective feeling of aging,” Yun said. “These changes are typical manifestations of sleep deprivation and can exacerbate both sleepiness and the perception of old age.”
However, if the person had slept well during the month, they felt almost six years younger, on average, than their actual age.
Severe sleep deprivation
The second study asked 186 of the same participants to sleep in a lab for two nights, making sure to sleep no more than four hours each night. The subjective experience of aging was much greater when people experienced this degree of sleep deprivation: on average, people felt almost 4½ years older than they actually were.
How quickly can people recover from sleep deprivation and start feeling younger again?
“The answer to that question is unknown. What our data suggests is that it could happen quite quickly,” Balter said. “Anything that can alleviate sleepiness can have an immediate impact on subjective age. However, to achieve more substantial and long-lasting effects, it is essential to ensure sufficient sleep.”
The second study tracked sleepiness, and for every unit increase on a measurement scale, people added 1.23 years to their assessment of aging.
Gender did not matter, but the chronotype of the dream did; People who love to get up early, often called early risers, felt the impact most keenly.
Early risers were classified as more than five years older than nocturnal types, also known as night owls, and four years older than middle types, people with a biological clock that doesn’t fit either extreme. However, when early risers slept up to nine hours a night, they felt much younger.
So do early risers need more sleep than night owls?
“These findings support that sleep, a vital biological phenomenon, may be the key to feeling young,” Balter and his colleagues wrote in the study.
To improve overall well-being, prioritizing adequate sleep is paramount, Yun said.
“If you suspect that your lack of sleep is due to a sleep disorder such as insomnia or sleep apnea, it is crucial to seek evaluation and treatment from a health care professional,” he said.
“Remember, getting a good night’s sleep can help you live younger.”