Trouble sleeping could cause your brain to age faster than normal

MINNEAPOLIS — Trouble sleeping could be a red flag for poor brain health in middle age. Researchers with the American Academy of Neurology found issues with falling asleep and staying asleep are both associated with signs of brain aging.

“Sleep problems have been linked in previous research to poor thinking and memory skills later in life, putting people at higher risk for dementia,” says Dr. Clémence Cavaillès, a researcher at the University of California San Francisco and co-author of the study, in a media release. “Our study which used brain scans to determine participants’ brain age, suggests that poor sleep is linked to nearly three years of additional brain aging as early as middle age.”

People who had two to three sleep issues showed signs of brain aging. Their brains were 1.6 years older than those who reported only one issue related to poor sleep. Meanwhile, people who reported three or more sleep issues had brains aged up to 2.6 years faster.

Trouble falling and staying asleep, poor sleep quality, and early morning awakenings were associated with accelerated brain aging. Brain aging was linked to people consistently having these sleep issues for over five years.

The study published in Neurology invited 589 people, with an average age of 40, to participate. They completed sleep questionnaires at the start of the study and again five years later. Brain scans were taken 15 years after the study commenced.

The sleep survey asked questions such as, “Do you usually have trouble falling asleep?” “Do you usually wake up several times at night?” and “Do you usually wake up far too early?” People also filled in their sleep behavior, including the six indicators of poor sleep: short sleep duration, low sleep quality, trouble falling asleep, issues staying asleep, early morning awakening, and daytime sleepiness.

People were divided into three groups. The low group was comprised of people with one poor sleep characteristic. People in the middle group had two to three poor sleep characteristics, while the high group possessed over three signs of poor sleep. Seventy percent of participants were in the low group, 22% were in the middle group, and 8% were in the high group. Fifteen years after the study started, the researchers looked at the participants’ brain scans to measure the brain age of each person. They calculated the level of brain shrinkage expected at that age with what they saw on the scans.

“Our findings highlight the importance of addressing sleep problems earlier in life to preserve brain health, including maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, exercising, avoiding caffeine and alcohol before going to bed and using relaxation techniques,” says Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a researcher at the University of California San Francisco and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Future research should focus on finding new ways to improve sleep quality and investigating the long-term impact of sleep on brain health in younger people.”