Gaby
Researchers at Augusta University say a good night’s sleep not only makes you look better but may also slow aging.
A team at Augusta University found that people who keep a consistent sleep schedule are biologically younger. By contrast, irregular sleep was linked with worse health and a higher risk of early death.
While chronological age refers to the number of years lived, biological age indicates how old the cells and tissues are.
How the Study Was Conducted
The team started with the hypothesis that disruption of the body’s internal clock—the circadian rhythm—could speed up cellular aging and trigger age-related diseases.
To test that idea, they analyzed sleep data from 6,052 participants (average age 50) collected as part of the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
For four to seven days, volunteers wore trackers that gathered data on sleep duration, variability (changes in sleep time), and irregularity. Researchers were particularly interested in the difference in sleep duration between weekdays and weekends, as well as how the average sleep onset time shifted between those periods. During the study, the team also asked about participants’ health status, weight, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, and physical activity levels.
The scientists calculated the biological age of participants by analyzing blood samples, blood pressure, cholesterol, and the presence or absence of signs of diabetes, liver disease, and kidney disease.
What the Researchers Discovered
Results published in Sleep Health showed about two-thirds of participants slept between seven and nine hours per night; 16% slept less than seven hours, and 19% slept more than nine hours.
On average, participants’ sleep times varied by about an hour night-to-night. On weekends they slept an additional 78 minutes, and sleep onset time shifted by about 42 minutes on weekdays and 66 minutes on weekends. People with the most erratic sleep schedules were biologically about nine months older than those who kept a regular routine.
Researchers believe that frequently changing bedtime and wake-up time disrupts the circadian rhythm, thereby raising biological age.
The team said their study is the first to link changes in sleep patterns with biological aging.
Previous studies have linked irregular sleep with higher risks of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cognitive disorders. Those conditions are markers of increased biological age.
