Sleep Foundation Study of 3,100 Adults Links Feeling Older to Poorer Sleep

2 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jun 21

More than 3,100 adults who said they felt older than their actual age also reported worse sleep quality, more insomnia symptoms, less regular sleep and greater daytime impairment in a study published in Sleep.
Researchers compared answers to the question "How old do you feel?" with measures of sleep consistency and daytime functioning, finding the oldest-feeling group consistently fared worse than peers who felt younger or near their actual age.
Poorer physical health was also more common in people who felt older, reinforcing experts' view that chronic sleep loss can leave people mentally foggy, less patient and less able to manage daily demands.
The findings suggest fatigue and low energy should not automatically be written off as normal aging, though the self-reported, observational study cannot show whether poor sleep causes people to feel older or the reverse.