More Sleep, Less Aging

More Sleep, Less Aging

If you’ve stayed up late studying, working, or even sometimes worrying about life: you’ll know what it’s like to feel completely drained the next day.

And now, recent studies conducted on massive datasets are showing that a lack of sleep can become deadly!

Let us dive into what researchers found.

Why We Need Sleep

Your body needs sleep to repair your cells. When long-term sleep deprivation happens, it puts a lot of oxidative stress on the cells and DNA structures in the body. 

In fact, the stress put on the body leads to inflammation and even aging, with cell death and even genetic changes following suit.

Sleep Cleans Your Brain

Sleep regulates metabolism, and through the glymphatic nervous system that leads through your spine, the brain is cleansed every time you sleep to prevent the buildup of harmful Alzheimer’s proteins.

The next time you’ve had a good rest, it’s probably because sleep was helping your mind to clean itself!

Humans Used To Nap Alot

Before the invention of clocks and lights, our ancestors who tended plants used to take short naps throughout the day. Their sleep schedule was more flexible, and not fixed. 

One big reason why sleep disorders are common in our modern age is because of the invention of blue-light screens, which can trick the brain into thinking it is still daytime even when it’s not.

What The Researchers Found

After analyzing patient data from multiple databases over the course of their lifetimes, they found that patients who slept less than 7 hours had a 14% increased risk in mortality!

They also found that men had a higher risk of death from lack of sleep. The researchers suspected that it could be the effects of lack of sleep compounding with dangerous lifestyles or diseases like sleep apnea or heart attacks, which are more commonly reported in men. 

This means that anytime between 7 to 9 hours of sleep is the best range for us.