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Sleeping poorly ages your brain by almost 3 years, shows study
It is widely understood that sleep is an important lifestyle factor to improve quality of life, if you don’t sleep great then you often don’t feel great. But a recently published study shows that poor sleep can actually age your brain by almost three years!
This research determines the association between early midlife sleep and advanced brain aging patterns in late midlife. Sleep plays a vital role in maintaining good health. So if you pulled an all-nighter for the election, then you might want to consider how this may impact your brain.
Research shows poor sleep ages your brain
A study titled ‘Association of Self-Reported Sleep Characteristics With Neuroimaging Markers of Brain Aging Years Later in Middle-Aged Adults’ was published in Neurology Journals on 23 October 2024.
The aim was to investigate whether poor sleep earlier in life can predict signs of an older brain age years later.
Science Direct explains that brain age refers to the prediction of an individual’s age based on their neuroimaging data using machine learning techniques.
Brain age can differ from chronological age and is associated with cognitive and physiological aging, as well as the risk of neurodegenerative diseases and mortality in older adults. Brain age is also used to identify factors that impact brain health as people age.
The research used the CARDIA study (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study), a long-term study of cardiovascular disease beginning in young adulthood according to National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Researchers analyzed sleep data at baseline and five years later, focusing on short sleep duration, bad sleep quality, difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep, early morning awakening, and daytime sleepiness. These were categorized into 01, 23, and >3 poor sleep characteristics.
Do you struggle to sleep? If it sounds like these categories can relate to your snoozing habits, then it seems your brain may be at risk of aging, as the upcoming results reflect.
Your brain can age by a few years
Brain MRIs (scans that use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images of the inside of the body) obtained 15 years later, were used to determine brain age through a machine learning approach based on age-related atrophy.
The cohort study included 589 participants, with an average age of around 40. At baseline, around 70% reported 01 poor sleep quality, 22% reported 2%3%, and 8% reported >3 poor sleep quality.
Participants with more extreme poor sleep quality had 1.6-year and 2.6-year older brain age, respectively, compared with those with less poor sleep quality.
Of the individual characteristics, bad sleep quality, difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep, and early morning awakening were associated with greater brain age, especially when persistent over the five-year follow-up.
In other words, individuals with more frequent sleep problems tend to have ‘older’ brains according to neuroimaging markers.
Some expert advice online recommends sipping a three-minute drink the next time you cant sleep, that will supposedly help you to drift off.
