A good night's sleep may be the key to healthy ageing: Study

A team of Chinese researchers found that healthy and successful ageing is determined by sleep patterns.

The team from Wenzhou Medical University in China defined successful ageing, as the absence of major chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, chronic lung diseases, heart disease, and stroke; having good cognitive and mental health; and with no physical impairments.

The study called for maintaining stable and adequate sleep durations to promote healthy ageing.

“The findings underscore the critical importance of monitoring dynamic changes in sleep duration in middle-aged and older adults,” said the team in the paper, published in the journal BMC Public Health.

In the study, the team analysed 3,306 participants who were free of major chronic diseases in 2011 and had reached age 60 or older by 2020.

The team combined night-time sleep and daytime naps to calculate total daily sleep hours in 2011, 2013, and 2015.

The researchers identified five distinct sleep duration trajectories: normal-stable (26.1 per cent of participants), long-stable (26.7 per cent), decreasing (7.3 per cent), increasing (13.7 per cent), and short-stable (26.2 per cent).

People with increasing and short stable sleep trajectories exhibited significantly lower odds of successful ageing. The decreasing sleep pattern also showed reduced odds.

Overall, just 13.8 per cent of the cohort met the definition of successful ageing by 2020.

The team found that regular shorter and longer sleep durations may hamper successful ageing, as it can disrupt physiological and psychological well-being.

“These findings underscore that chronic sleep deprivation, as well as the patterns of increasing and decreasing sleep duration, are not mere age-related changes; rather, they emerge as pivotal indicators of obstacles in the pursuit of successful ageing,” the team said in the paper.