Can Not Getting Enough Sleep Cause Faster Ageing?

Not getting the correct quality and quantity of sleep can impact your mental and physical well-being. Adults need between 7-9 hours of sleep every night. According to some latest studies, sleep may also affect how you look and feel; if you are not getting adequate rest every night, it can make you feel older than you actually are. Leonie Balter, a sleep researcher at Stockholm University in Sweden, and the lead author of two new studies said not getting enough sleep may cause you to feel five to 10 years older. She was quoted as telling CNN: "Sleep plays a causal role in how old individuals feel. Insufficient sleep induces feelings of sleepiness. Sleepiness is an important motivational state that makes us prioritise sleep and reduces our energy levels." The studies were published recently in the journal of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

What The Studies Found In one of the studies, 429 participants between the ages of 18 and 70 years were given questionnaires to fill, to analyse their sleep quality. "Those who reported having zero out of 30 days of insufficient sleep felt younger than their calendar age, with a subjective age that was on average 5.81 years younger," the study noted. On the contrary, individuals who reported having a night of insufficient sleep had an older subjective age. In fact, findings show 'for each additional day of insufficient sleep during the last 30 days, the subjective age increased by 0.23 years'.Balter also reportedly said that a lack of energy and motivation can 'certainly contribute to feeling older while limiting a person's ability to remain physically and socially active, both of which contribute to feeling young'. In the second study, 186 participants between the ages of 18 and 46 years purportedly slept in a lab and 'experienced sleep restriction and saturation'. On the two nights with sleep restriction, they were 'allowed to sleep only four hours each night'. When the individuals were allowed sleep saturation, they slept for nine hours on two other nights. Apparently, after sleep restriction, 'participants felt on average 4.44 years older'; after sleep saturation, they felt '0.24 years younger than their calendar age'. "These results suggest that morning types, on average, feel subjectively younger when sleep is saturated, but experience a larger increase in subjective age when exposed to sleep restriction," the study mentioned, adding: "Both studies, one cross-sectional and one experimental, demonstrate that sleep and sleepiness play a profound role in shaping our sense of age."