“Psychologists in Sweden found that, on average, volunteers felt more than four years older when they were restricted to only four hours of sleep for two consecutive nights, with some claiming the sleepiness made them feel decades older.
The opposite was seen when people were allowed to stay in bed for nine hours, though the effect was more modest, with participants in the study claiming to feel on average three months younger than their real age after ample rest.”
Dr Leonie Balter, a psychoneuroimmunologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm says that simply feeling older can negatively affect one’s health by encouraging less healthy eating, exercise and the act of engaging in new experiences. She however says that this can be used as an advantage since if we can make people feel like they are younger, they can reap the benefits such as feeling like they can be more socially and physically active and open to new experiences.
Dr Serena Sabatini, a psychologist at the University of Surrey who was uninvolved with the study, says we should also explore the effects of poor sleep over months and years.
In another study conducted over 10 years of more than 4000 Europeans revealed that people who exercised consistently two to three times a week were significantly less likely to have insomnia.
“Those who exercised two or more times a week, for at least an hour a week, were 42% less likely to have problems falling asleep than inactive people, the study found, and 55% more likely to be “normal sleepers” who got a healthy amount of shut-eye each night.”