If you want to feel young and spirited again…. sleep. Lack of sleep leads to feeling up to 10 years older, according to a new study.
- Researchers at Stockholm University have found that sleep affects how old you feel.
- Fatigue can make you feel ten years older.
- Preserving your sleep is crucial to maintaining a youthful feeling, according to the study.
“Given that sleep is essential for brain function and overall well-being, we decided to test whether sleep holds any secrets to preserving the feeling of youthfulness”, explains Leonie Balter, researcher at the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University and lead author of the study. And according to his work published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Bsleep-deprived people can feel up to 10 years older than they are.
Sleep and perceived age: two studies to evaluate the effect
To accurately determine the effect of chronic fatigue on vitality, the researchers conducted two separate experiments. In the first, they asked 429 people aged 18 to 70 how old they felt, how many days in the past month they didn’t get enough sleep and how tired they were. Analyzing the responses, the team determined that for each night of insufficient sleep over the past month, participants felt on average 0.23 years older.
In the second part, the scientists wanted to determine if it was indeed lack of sleep that caused this feeling of old age. To do this, they asked 186 volunteers to sleep only four hours a night, two days in a row. At another time, they had to spend nine hours in bed a night for two days. After the sleep restriction, participants felt on average 4.4 years older compared to when they had gotten enough rest.
Lack of sleep: fatigue can make you feel like you’re 10 years older
The researchers concluded that the effects of sleep on subjective age appeared to be related to the degree of sleepiness experienced. “Feeling extremely alert was linked to feeling four years younger than one’s actual age, while extreme sleepiness was linked to feeling six years older than one’s actual age”they write.
The test manager adds: “This means that going from alert to sleepy state added 10 years to the perceived age.” She believes that “Preserving our sleep is crucial to maintaining a youthful feeling. This, in turn, can promote a more active lifestyle and encourage health-promoting behaviors, as feeling young and alert is important to our motivation to be active “.
