Forget beauty sleep, scientists say ‘consistently’ getting a good night’s rest can SLOW ageing

You already know the importance of having a restful sleep.

But scientists now say that getting a good night’s sleep will not only make you prettier, but it also has anti-aging effects.

Researchers in the United States, who tracked the sleeping habits of more than 6,000 people, claim that those who followed a consistent sleeping pattern were biologically younger.

Failure to adhere to a regular bedtime or sleep duration was linked to poorer health and earlier death.

The team suggested that alterations to the body’s internal clock can accelerate the aging of the body’s cells and the onset of age-related diseases.

While chronological age is the number of years you have been alive, biological age refers to the age of your cells and tissues based on their current condition.

Biological aging can act as an indicator of how long a person will remain in good health and their risk of premature death, research has shown.

However, it is unclear how sleep affects biological aging.

The team, from Augusta University in Georgia, analyzed sleep data from 6,052 participants, aged 50 on average, collected as part of the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The group wore a sleep tracker for four to seven days, which collected data on sleep duration; variability (whether their bedtime changed each night); and irregularity (how the midpoint of a person’s sleep differed each night).

It also provided data on catch-up sleep (differences in sleep duration between weekdays and weekend) and social jet lag (how the midpoint in a person’s sleep varied between weekdays and weekend). week).

Biological age was calculated by analyzing participants’ blood samples for signs of liver disease, kidney damage and diabetes, as well as high blood pressure and cholesterol.

The volunteers were also questioned about their health, including their weight, whether they drank alcohol or smoked, and their activity levels.

The results, published in the journal Sleep healthshow that about two-thirds of participants slept between seven and nine hours a night, while 16 percent slept less than seven hours and 19 percent slept more than nine hours.

On average, participants’ bedtime changed by 60 minutes each night, while they slept an extra 78 minutes on the weekend.

The midpoint of their sleep changed by 42 minutes each night, on average, and by 66 minutes on weekends, the results show.

Those deviations in their sleep pattern each day (especially those with the greatest differences in the time they went to bed each night and the duration of sleep during the week compared to the weekend) had the highest biological age, according to show the results.

Those who had the least rigid sleep schedule were up to nine months older than those who were more consistent.

The researchers suggested that those who frequently change the time they go to bed and wake up alter their circadian rhythm (their internal biological clock), which may be the “main mechanism” that increases their biological age.

They pointed to animal studies showing that changes in the circadian rhythm accelerate the aging of the body’s cells and aggravate age-related diseases.

However, they noted that it is necessary to continue investigating their findings and the cause, since the study is observational. And those who struggled to sleep well may no longer be healthy, which could increase their biological age.

The team said their study is the first to link changes in sleep habits to biological aging.

However, previous research has linked an irregular sleep pattern to an increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, poor heart health, and cognitive decline, all of which risk increasing biological age.