Scan exposes how bad sleep affects our brain, study finds

Four in 10 Australians suffer with sleep problems, with poor bedtime habits having a serious effect on the brain, a new study found.

Poor sleep quality has been linked to accelerated brain ageing, a new study has found.

Around four in 10 Australians suffer with sleep problems, with research showing that those who get too much or too little sleep have an increased risk of several conditions, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke.

Now a new study, published in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, has revealed a bad night’s rest can wreak havoc on sleep later in life.

Researchers studied the sleep habits of nearly 600 adults aged around 40 years old who completed a sleep questionnaire at the start of the study and again fifteen years later.

Questions included, “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?”

Bad sleep can affect your brain later in life, a new study finds. Picture: iStock

It found that people with more than three poor sleep characteristics had a brain age that was almost 3 years older than those with no more than one of six sleep characteristics assessed.

“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,” said study author Dr Kristine Yaffe of UC San Francisco.

Poor sleep characteristics included short sleep duration, bad sleep quality, difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, early morning awakening, and daytime sleepiness, according to MedPageToday.

Individuals vary in their sleep needs, but most adults require between 7 and 9 hours a night to feel properly refreshed and function at their best the next day, according to the Australian Sleep Health Foundation.

Experts conducting the study divided participants into three groups based on their sleep traits. Those in the low group (about 70 per cent) had none or one of the six characteristics. Middle group participants (22 per cent) had two or three, and those in the high group (8 per cent) had four to six, the New York Post reported.

Fifteen years after the start of the study, participants underwent cranial scans that helped researchers calculate their brain age.

After accounting for age, sex, high blood pressure, diabetes and other factors, researchers determined that middle group brains were 1.6 years older on average than low group brains. While those in the high group had an average brain age 2.6 years older.

Brain scans taken over a 15 year period show how poor sleep habits can age the brain. Picture:

Of the six sleep habits, poor sleep quality, difficulty falling and staying asleep and early morning awakening were linked to greater brain age, especially when people experienced these problems for at least five years.

The researchers emphasised that their study, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, does not prove that poor sleep accelerates brain ageing — it only shows an association between the two.

One limitation of the research is that participants reported their own sleep problems and they may not have accurately characterised them, MedPageToday said.

“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,” Dr Yaffe added.

Originally published as Scan exposes how bad sleep affects our brain, study finds