Feel like you’ve aged overnight? You really might have! Restless sleep can make you feel a DECADE older, finds study

Sometimes it seems as if you have aged overnight.

Now, a study has found that restless sleep actually makes you feel up to 10 years older.

Researchers conducted two studies to determine whether sleep could affect how old a person feels.

First, they asked 429 participants to record their self-perceived age for 30 days, as well as how many nights they felt they had not gotten enough sleep.

The analysis revealed that for each additional day of insufficient sleep, subjective age increased by 0.23 years.

Then, 182 people were enrolled in a sleep restriction study, where they were only allowed to be in bed four hours a night for two nights.

This made people feel 4.44 years older compared to people who spent 9 hours in bed, the study showed.

The analysis also revealed that a transition from feeling extremely alert to feeling extremely sleepy was related to feeling 10 years older in both studies.

The researchers, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

They wrote: ‘Many people feel younger than their natural age.

“While this phenomenon is less common among younger individuals, as we approach our thirties and beyond, the discrepancy between our age and the age we feel becomes more pronounced.

“New research suggests that our sleep habits may play a role in shaping our age.

“It turns out that feeling younger than our actual age is associated with a longer life, better mental and physical health, and more positive psychological traits.”

They said their two studies “demonstrate that sleep and drowsiness play a profound role in shaping our sense of age,” and that “our perception of age is remarkably malleable.”

“These discoveries open new possibilities for fostering a feeling of youth,” they added.

“Protecting sleep is probably a key factor in feeling young.”