Two nights of sleep deprivation can make people feel years older, study finds

Scientists have found that as a result of two nights of lack of sleep, a person can feel more than four years older than he really is.

According to the results of the study, which published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, such sensations can occur if you sleep no more than four hours for two consecutive days, writes The Guardian.

As part of the scientific work, Swedish psychologists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm conducted two studies.

In the first, they asked 429 people aged 18 to 70 about how old they felt and how many nights, if any, they had had a bad night’s sleep in the past month.

It is noted that the level of sleepiness of each participant was assessed according to a scale used in psychological research.

As a result, scientists found that for every day of poor sleep, people felt on average three months older.

At the same time, those who did not have sleepless nights during the last month, on average, felt almost six years younger than their actual age.

To test whether poor sleep affects the feeling of age, in a second study, scientists asked 186 people aged 18 to 46 how old they felt after two nights of a full 9 hours of sleep and two nights when they got just four hours of sleep. day.

According to participants, after two nights of sleep deprivation, they felt an average of 4.44 years older than when they got enough sleep.

Meanwhile, after a full day of rest, they felt on average three months younger than they actually are.

In addition, the scientists found that the “owl” people felt older than their actual age even after a long sleep, whereas the “lark” people had a similar feeling only when they could not sleep well.

“It’s important to realize how flexible subjective age is. If we can help people feel younger, they will have a number of benefits“, noted the author of the study, psychoneuroimmunologist Leonie Balter.

He added that, in addition to the fact that lack of sleep can encourage unhealthy eating and less physical activity, a person will be less inclined to socialize and have new experiences.

We used to toldhow to combine air alarms and quality sleep.