Journalism of Courage
Sleeping too little or too much accelerates ageing; here is a sweet spot to target
A groundbreaking study published in Nature reveals a clear "U-shaped" link between sleep duration and biological ageing across 17 different organs.
Could your sleep schedule be ageing you faster? New research points to a clear link between sleep duration and biological ageing. (image: file photo)
Turns out, your sleeping habits might be ageing you faster than you ever thought. A major study published in Nature confirmed that too few or too many hours of sleep can speed up your biological clock and lead to numerous diseases.
The science of sleep just got a lot more personal than ever before.
The researchers highlighted that sleep ranging from 6.4 to 7.8 hours every night is associated with slower rates of physiological ageing.
“We have known for a while that poor sleep is linked to individual disease, such as heart disease, diabetes, dementia,” said Yue Leng, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and a study author who was not involved with the research to Health.
“But this study is the first to show, in a single analysis, that sleep duration has a consistent ‘U-shaped’ relationship with biological ageing across the entire body.”
Researchers studied the health data of more than 500,000 people registered with the UK Biobank. They assessed the biological ageing of 17 organs, including the heart, lungs, and brain. Then they compared the findings with the candidate’s self-reported sleep hours.
On analysing the data, a pattern emerged: sleeping more than eight hours or less than six hours was directly linked to faster ageing.
“Since sleep problems affect so many people, this research could have a major impact on public health and quality of life for millions of individuals,” said Michelle Drerup, PsyD, the director of education and behavioural sleep medicine at the Sleep Disorders Centre at Cleveland Clinic, to Health.
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The experts said that excessive sleep might not be the problem, but it might signal underlying health issues that have accelerated biological ageing. For instance, the study linked longer sleep hours with depression in later life.
“So, with long sleep, the message isn’t sleeping too much is poisoning you,” Leng explained. “It’s more, if you’re consistently sleeping nine or 10 hours and still feel unwell, your body may be trying to tell you something important about your underlying health.”
Too little sleep, meanwhile, may be more directly linked to speedy ageing. It can increase inflammation, impair cells’ ability to repair damage, and “raise cortisol and sympathetic nervous system activity in ways that accelerate cellular ageing across multiple tissues,” said Junhao Wen, the senior study author, PhD, an assistant professor of radiological sciences at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national public health agency of the United States, recommends a minimum of seven hours of sleep per night for adults aged 18 to 60 years.
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Leng said that having regular bed and wake-up times, avoiding alcohol and screen time before sleeping, and exposure to bright light in the morning “help anchor your circadian clock.”
(This article has been curated by Seekriti Saha, who is an intern with The Indian Express)
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