Study Finds Surprising Link Between Sleep & This Common Joint Issue

From mindbodygreen.com

By Zhané Slambee

Sleep rarely comes up in conversations about joint health. Most guidance focuses on weight management, exercise, and avoiding injury, and for good reason.

But a large new study suggests that what happens at night may matter more for your joints than previously understood.

Researchers analysed data from nearly 500,000 adults and found that short sleep, frequent insomnia, and night shift work were all independently linked to a higher risk of developing osteoarthritis (OA), a degenerative joint disease and needing joint replacement surgery. And many of those associations held even after accounting for body weight. 

                                                                          Image by Addictive Creatives / Stocksy

About the study

Osteoarthritis develops when the cartilage cushioning your joints breaks down over time. It's driven by a mix of factors: joint injury, metabolic changes, aging, and genetics. But researchers have been looking more closely at another possible contributor—disruptions to your body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm.

Cartilage goes through daily cycles of stress and recovery. During the day, it absorbs load and metabolic demand. At night, it recovers; rebuilding thickness and water content. 

The cells that make up cartilage (called chondrocytes, which is the only cell type found in cartilage) follow their own internal daily rhythm, which helps coordinate that repair process. In animal studies, disrupting the circadian clock led to cartilage breakdown similar to what's seen in OA. 

To see whether that pattern holds in people, researchers at Washington University used data from the UK Biobank, a large prospective study of approximately 500,000 adults in the United Kingdom recruited between 2006 and 2010. Participants (median age 58, 54% female) answered baseline questions about their sleep duration, how often they experienced trouble falling or staying asleep, and whether they worked shifts.

Researchers then tracked four outcomes over the following 8 to 13 years: knee OA, hip OA, total knee replacement, and total hip replacement.

Short sleep, insomnia, & night shifts all raised OA risk

People sleeping fewer than six hours a night had a 41% higher risk of knee OA and a 31% higher risk of needing a knee replacement compared with those sleeping seven hours. 

For the hip, the numbers were similar—39% higher risk of hip OA and 21% higher risk of hip replacement.

People who "usually" had trouble falling asleep or staying asleep had a 34% higher risk of knee OA and a 40% higher risk of knee replacement compared with those who "never or rarely" experienced those problems. 

Similar increases were seen for hip OA (30% higher risk) and hip replacement (24% higher risk).

Night shift workers, specifically those working through the hours of 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., had a 24% higher risk of knee OA and a 28% higher risk of knee replacement compared with people who didn't work shifts.

Night shift work was not significantly linked to hip OA or hip replacement, a pattern the researchers note is consistent with animal research: when the circadian clock gene BMAL1 (a key protein that helps regulate the body's internal clock) is knocked out in mice, cartilage in the knee breaks down, but not in the hip.

Why the associations held even after controlling for weight 

We've always thought that poor sleep raises OA risk mainly because it contributes to weight gain, which then puts more stress on your joints. But the data here tell a more complicated story.

After accounting for body weight, all of the associations weakened but didn't disappear. People sleeping fewer than six hours still had a 31% higher risk of knee OA and a 20% higher risk of knee replacement. Insomnia remained linked to all four endpoints. Night shift work remained linked to knee OA and knee replacement specifically.

The researchers also ran a separate analysis excluding anyone who already reported at least three months of knee or hip pain at the time of their sleep assessment. This was to rule out the possibility that people were sleeping poorly simply because they were already in pain.

The associations held there too.

Why knees may be especially vulnerable

Across all three sleep factors (duration, insomnia, and shift work) the signal was strongest and most consistent for the knee. The researchers offer a few explanations.

The knee may depend more heavily on a functioning circadian clock than the hip does, partly because of differences in how the two joints are structured and how hip OA tends to develop (often through issues like hip dysplasia or impingement).

Weight also plays a bigger role in knee OA than hip OA, and disrupted sleep likely influences the knee partly through that pathway.

One other pattern stood out: among night shift workers whose jobs rarely or never required heavy physical labour, the risk increases were even larger; 43% higher knee OA risk and 40% higher knee replacement risk.

The researchers suggest that circadian disruption may have the biggest impact on people who don't already have elevated OA risk from physical wear on the job.

Sleep habits worth building for your joint health long-term

Circadian rhythms and sleep can be improved through lifestyle changes and sleep hygiene. This points to new potential ways to reduce OA risk before joint pain ever develops. Here are strategies worth considering:

Keep a consistent sleep schedule: Seven hours appears to be the protective threshold in this data. Going to bed and waking at the same time every day helps anchor your body's internal clock.

Get morning light exposure: Light is one of the most powerful cues for setting your circadian rhythm. Getting outside in the first hour after waking helps your body clock stay on track.

Limit artificial light at night: Dimming screens and lights in the hours before bed supports your body's natural melatonin production and helps protect your sleep timing.

Address insomnia early: Frequent insomnia was linked to risk increases comparable to (and in some cases greater than) sleeping fewer than six hours.

If you work night shifts, minimize circadian disruption where you can: Changing your schedule may not be an option, but strategies like timed light exposure, strategic napping, and keeping a consistent routine on days off can help reduce the mismatch between your internal clock and your work hours.

The takeaway

This large prospective study found that sleeping fewer than six hours, experiencing frequent insomnia, and working night shifts were all linked to higher osteoarthritis risk (particularly at the knee) even after accounting for body weight.

The findings suggest that sleep quality and circadian health may be modifiable risk factors for OA, alongside the more commonly discussed pillars of exercise and weight management.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/poor-sleep-could-be-quietly-raising-your-osteoarthritis-risk-study-finds 

Using cannabis for sleep isn’t harmless – a neurologist explains how it can trap people in a cycle of dependency

From theconversation.com

For millions of people, cannabis has become the unofficial prescription for lost sleep. But what feels like a solution may be quietly making the problem worse.

Consider these two cases:

She is 15 and has been lying in bed for the past hour. It is past midnight, and her brain will not quiet down. Her school bus comes at 6:20 a.m. She is getting anxious, knowing that she needs to wake up in six hours. She did all the right things: turned off her phone at 10 p.m., tried melatonin. So tonight she tries something a friend recommended: a cannabis gummy. Within 20 minutes, she’s asleep.

He is 34, a veteran who did two tours and has struggled with sleep since coming home. It takes him two hours to fall asleep, and when he does, he is jolted awake by relentless nightmares. He hasn’t slept more than three hours a night in months, and it’s catching up with him. His buddy swears that cannabis helped him, and with a six-month waiting list for a sleep consultation at the Veteran’s Affairs medical center and a cannabis dispensary six blocks away that’s open until 10 p.m., the decision doesn’t feel complicated.

Both will tell you cannabis works for their specific needs. They are not entirely wrong. But no one has told them what is actually happening inside the brain when the lights go out. It’s complex, and for them – as for many others – ultimately it’s a trap.

As a neurologist specializing in sleep and brain performance, I write this not as someone opposed to cannabis but as someone who regularly sees patients whose sleep has quietly unravelled after months or years of use, especially teenagers and veterans.

I believe the public deserves a more complete picture than they currently have due to the limited research that’s available.

Why the teenage brain is especially vulnerable

From the early teens through the mid-20s, the brain is actively under construction, clearing out weak or redundant connections and reinforcing the circuits responsible for judgment, emotional regulation and stress response.

Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, interferes with this process directly by acting on the endocannabinoid system, one of the primary regulatory networks guiding it.

A 2021 brain imaging study of 799 teenagers found that cannabis use was associated with dose-dependent thinning of the cerebral cortex – meaning the more cannabis a teenager used, the thinner their prefrontal cortex became. The prefrontal cortex is the region of the brain responsible for judgment, decision-making and impulse control. Thinning of the cortex in this region has been associated with increased impulsivity, poorer decision-making and reduced inhibitory control.

Another seldom-discussed factor is how puberty affects sleep. Hormonal changes and brain maturation in adolescence shift the internal biological clock, known as the circadian rhythm, toward a later sleep schedule.

And teenagers are far from alone. A 2025 study found that more than 1 in 5 young adults in the U.S. turn to cannabis or alcohol to fall asleep. For teenagers who are already sleep-deprived and facing early school start times, cannabis can become its own nightly fix.

Teenagers’ developing brains are particularly vulnerable to harms from cannabis use. Fiordaliso/Moment via Getty Images

What cannabis is doing while you sleep

Sleep is not passive. It is well-organized, purposeful and foundational to our physical and brain health.

Every night, the brain cycles through distinct stages, each serving a specific function. All sleep stages matter, but the one that matters most is REM sleep, the dreaming stage. This is when the brain processes the emotional weight of the day, locks in learning and resets the brain circuits that govern mood, judgment and resilience.

THC has a sedative effect at low doses but is stimulating at high doses. Cannabis also contains other cannabinoids – plant-derived compounds such as CBD and CBN that interact with a system in the body that produces its own cannabinoids and contributes to the sedative effects of cannabis.

Here is where it gets complicated.

THC does help people fall asleep faster, but that effect fades quickly as the body adapts to regular use. The same gummy that once helped someone fall asleep quickly does less. They need more to get the same effect.

In addition, falling asleep quicker is not the same as sleeping well. A 2025 review of the research to date found that cannabis does not consistently improve sleep overall, including how long people stay asleep or how restful that sleep is.

In a separate study, chronic daily users spent significantly more time awake during the night and got less restful sleep compared with nonusers; another study found that using cannabis close to bedtime had similar effects.

In other words, the subjective sense of sleeping better does not match what the brain recordings show.

When relief becomes reliance

At this point many people are using cannabis not because it is working well, but because stopping feels worse.

Even when chronic cannabis users have the willpower to stop, they often face brutal withdrawal symptoms that are more severe than what drove them to cannabis in the first place. Sleep disturbance, including insomnia and disturbing dreams, is described as a common manifestation of cannabis withdrawal. In addition, two-thirds of users report other symptoms such as anxiety, depressed mood, restlessness, irritability, decreased appetite or a combination of these symptoms that often persist for weeks after stopping use.

The discomfort of withdrawal drives many people to keep using it.

This is the trap – it’s quiet and insidious, which makes it harder to see.

Cannabis works just enough to feel like a solution. Night after night it dulls the problem without fixing it, until stopping feels unthinkable. When someone finally tries to quit, their sleep falls apart. So they go back. The original reason they could not sleep has not been identified or treated, and it hasn’t gone away.

Trying to quit cannabis use can bring about severe withdrawal and other symptoms. Jamie Grill/Tetra Images via Getty Images

Veterans and the need for long-term recovery

The developing brain is one kind of vulnerability. The traumatized brain is another.

Post-traumatic stress disorder affects an estimated 12% to 23% of post-9/11 veterans, compared with 6% to 8% of the general population. Sleep disturbances affect 70% to 90% of military personnel with PTSD. People with PTSD commonly have nightmares that are visceral, relentless and exhausting. They might be jolted awake with a pounding heart, multiple times a night, for years.

As a result, many veterans turn to cannabis to help them sleep. It’s understandable, especially when it can take weeks or months to get an appointment with a mental health practitioner.

But the data on outcomes for veterans is sobering. Those with cannabis use disorder – meaning cannabis use they struggle to control despite negative consequences, which affects roughly 1 in 4 veterans who use cannabis nonmedically – have higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation and respond much more poorly to evidence-based PTSD treatments.
And then there is withdrawal. When a veteran tries to stop, the same symptoms that cannabis seemed to quiet come roaring back in potentially dangerous ways – rebound insomnia and nightmares, worsening depression and, in some cases, thoughts of suicide.

Because these withdrawal symptoms so closely mirror PTSD itself, many veterans interpret the return of symptoms as their condition worsening, not as withdrawal, so they go back to cannabis. And the cycle continues.

What actually works, and why it’s so hard to get

Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, is considered the first-line treatment for persistent insomnia. Research shows that it outperforms every sleep medication, cannabis included.

This therapy works by modifying sleep habits, regulating sleep-wake schedules, reducing arousal and reframing unhelpful beliefs about sleep. A form of treatment known as image rehearsal therapy, in which patients rewrite the storyline of a recurring nightmare and mentally rehearse the new version while awake, has been shown to be effective for veterans with trauma-related nightmares. But trained CBT-I providers are scarce, wait times are long, and most primary care settings do not offer it.

In other words, the people most vulnerable to the sleep-related harms of cannabis use are the least likely to have access to treatments that address the underlying problem, and the most likely to get caught in a negative cycle.

For those already caught in that cycle, quitting abruptly rarely works and often makes things worse. Research shows that CBT-I can reduce both insomnia and cannabis use at the same time – treating the root problem so cannabis no longer feels necessary.

Sleep is the foundation on which memory, mood, judgment and recovery are built.

The 15-year-old who cannot fall asleep and the veteran who wakes gasping at 3 a.m. both deserve evidence-based information about what is happening in their brains, and real access to care that treats the root cause.

https://theconversation.com/using-cannabis-for-sleep-isnt-harmless-a-neurologist-explains-how-it-can-trap-people-in-a-cycle-of-dependency-280904 

Middle insomnia: what it is and how to beat it

From saga.co.uk

By Patsy Westcott

Waking repeatedly in the night and being unable to sleep again is the form of insomnia most suffered by older people. But there are ways to boost your chance of a better night’s sleep 

It’s 3am and you’re awake. You turn over, plump up the pillow, adjust the duvet and try a different position. You take a sip of water, realise you need the loo, tell yourself it can wait, then decide it can’t, and drag yourself to the bathroom. By the time you get back into bed, you’re wide awake and thoroughly fed up. However hard you try, sleep won’t come. 

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Doctors call it middle insomnia, or sleep-maintenance insomnia, and it’s especially common in older people.

How common is middle insomnia?

“Sleep efficiency is undoubtedly more challenging as we get older,” says consultant neurologist Professor Guy Leschziner, professor of neurology and sleep medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals.

Around half of older people report difficulty dropping off or staying asleep. Of these, sleep-maintenance insomnia, defined as multiple awakenings or prolonged wakefulness in the middle of the night, affects 50 to 70%.

“Typically, people report waking at 2, 3 or 4am and being unable to fall asleep again for hours,” says psychologist and sleep expert Dr Lindsay Browning of Trouble Sleeping.

Why are older people more affected?

“There are several destabilising influences on sleep that come with age,” says Prof Leschziner, author of The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience and the Secret World of Sleep.

“They include weakening of the brain circuitry that controls when we fall asleep, when we wake up and how stable sleep is, together with changes in the secretion of the sleep hormone, melatonin.

“Melatonin is the main chemical signal to the brain that it’s time to go to sleep and stay asleep. With age, its nocturnal peak is much lower, making it harder to maintain sleep,” he explains.

What physical changes can cause middle insomnia?

Certain physical aspects of getting older play a role too. They include: 

• Bladder weakness or irritability
• Joint and back pain or stiffness
• Menopausal symptoms such as night sweats or anxiety
• Medications, such as blood pressure-lowering beta blockers and calcium channel blockers, antihistamines, steroids and some antidepressants  

Medical conditions can also be culprits according to Prof Leschziner. Common offenders include:

• Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep
• Periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), which causes repetitive, uncontrollable jerking or twitching of the limbs
• Restless legs syndrome (RLS) a neurological condition that creates an irresistible urge to move the legs

“People with these conditions often feel as though they haven’t had any sleep,” says Prof Leschziner. In fact, this can be a trick of the brain, making you feel as though you haven’t slept a wink when you may actually have been drifting in and out of sleep.

What should you do if you’re affected?

Both experts agree that it’s best to not to lie there tossing and turning as this strengthens the association between bed and wakefulness.

“If you feel like you have been awake for about 20 minutes or more, it can help to leave the bedroom and go somewhere else,” says Dr Browning.

Prof Leschziner suggests sitting in dim lighting and doing something fairly unstimulating until you feel sleepy again. Dr Browning, meanwhile, recommends doing something “pleasant and engaging” to take your mind off not sleeping.

As she explains: “The aim is not to make yourself sleepier. It’s to take your mind off the fact you’re awake. This can reduce the link between bed, wakefulness and frustration, so that when you return to bed, sleep is more likely to follow naturally.”

Getty

Distracting and/or calming activities could include:

• Reading
• Watching TV
• Listening to the radio
• Creative activities such as puzzles, word searches or colouring books
• Humming a favourite tune to calm the brain and vagus nerve  

And what shouldn’t you do?

One of the biggest mistakes is checking the time. “Calculating how much longer it is until morning, and how annoyed you are that you’ve woken up can increase anxiety, making it harder to go back to sleep,” says Dr Browning.

She recommends setting an alarm for the latest time you need to wake up. “If you wake in the middle of the night, ask yourself: ‘Has my alarm gone off yet?’ If it hasn’t, it’s not morning, and you can try to go back to sleep.’

Another thing to avoid is scrolling on your phone. This can make it harder to get back to sleep because it strengthens that connection between being in bed and being awake and mentally switched on, and secondly, because the content of what you scroll may leave you feeling alert, agitated or distracted.

Instead, she suggests trying a calming breathing exercise or what experts call cognitive shuffling: mentally listing random, unrelated words or objects to gently distract the brain.

Should you have a snack?

Having something to eat in the middle of the night is not a good idea either, as it can train your body to wake up expecting food at that time. Instead try a light snack before bed, such as a piece of wholemeal toast with nut butter or a glass of warm milk.

And while we’re on food and drink, bear in mind that eating late in the evening, as well as caffeine and alcohol, are well-known sleep disruptors.

Are there any treatments?

According to the British Geriatrics Society, it’s best to steer clear of sleeping pills if you can. Older people are more susceptible to their sedating effects, which can lead to daytime drowsiness and a higher risk of falls and serious injury.

The good news is there are plenty of non-pill options and, even if you have struggled with insomnia for decades, you can still improve your sleeping habits.

“Long-standing insomnia is often maintained by unhelpful behaviours and anxiety about sleep itself, and this can be changed,” says Dr Browning.

CBT-I (cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia) uses a range of techniques to tackle the habits and thought patterns that keep insomnia going – such as going to bed earlier to compensate for sleep loss or worrying about how you will function the next day – as well as so-called sleep restriction or sleep compression.

These techniques involve working out how long you usually spend asleep then strictly limiting the time you spend in bed to that time. It sounds counter-intuitive to deliberately restrict your sleep to treat insomnia, but over time it creates mild sleep deprivation. “Eventually, the sleep pressure that builds up as a result stabilises your sleep pattern, enabling you to gradually increase the amount of time you spend asleep in bed,” explains Prof Leschziner.

The Sleepio app, which uses CBT-I, is recommended by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and is thought to be especially beneficial for over 65s.

What matters, both experts agree, is not to accept broken nights as something you have to put up with. Once you understand what lies behind them, small changes to your routine can make a real difference and help you back to more restful nights.

Types of insomnia

• Short-term (acute) insomnia: lasts for less than three months and is often triggered by stressful events, jet lag or changes in the environment, such as a heatwave or extreme cold.
• Long-term (chronic) insomnia: lasts for three months or more and is often linked to underlying medical, psychological or lifestyle factors.
• Sleep-onset insomnia: difficulty dropping off at the beginning of the night. This is the kind most common in younger adults
• Sleep-maintenance (middle) insomnia: frequent awakenings during the night, or waking in the middle of the night and struggling to drop off again. This is the one most commonly suffered by older people
• Insomnia with early morning awakening: when you wake up very early in the morning, e.g. 5am.

If poor sleep is causing anxiety, frustration or daytime fatigue, speak to your GP or a sleep professional. 

https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/health-and-wellbeing/middle-insomnia-what-it-is-and-do-you-have-it

New digital platform treats insomnia and anxiety in seniors

From news-medical.net

Cognitive behavioural therapies for insomnia (CBT-I) are increasingly being delivered online in order to improve accessibility. However, although insomnia and anxiety frequently occur together in older adults, few interventions address both conditions simultaneously. A new digital platform developed by researchers at the Centre de recherche de l'Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), in collaboration with Concordia University, Université Laval and the Université de Montréal, aims to fill that gap.

The results of a clinical trial, published in the journal Age and Ageing, highlight the feasibility and effectiveness of the program, with promising applications for improving mental health and sleep among older adults.

An accessible program designed for seniors

The research team conducted a randomized controlled trial involving 80 adults aged 65 and older who were experiencing insomnia. The eCBT+ program consists of a seven-week intervention featuring one 30-minute interactive video module per week.

Insomnia and anxiety are very common among older adults. Although cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the first-line treatment for insomnia, access remains very limited because of the availability of trained professionals and the high cost of treatment."

Dr. Thien Thanh Dang-Vu, neurologist, laboratory director at CRIUGM and professor in Concordia University's Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology

Accessible on computer, tablet or smartphone, this platform is the first of its kind available in French. It was specifically designed for older users, with adjustable features such as text size and contrast settings, as well as scenarios that reflect their everyday experiences.

Significant clinical results

The research team conducted a randomized controlled trial with 80 adults over the age of 65 suffering from insomnia. The study aimed to assess the usability, acceptability and preliminary efficacy of the eTCC+ program compared to a waitlist control group. 

In terms of usability, participants rated the platform as user-friendly and intuitive, achieving a usability score of nearly 70 per cent. Acceptance of the platform was driven primarily by its ease of use and the perceived usefulness of the program.

"From a clinical perspective, the intervention proved highly effective. Participants who completed the eCBT+ program experienced significant improvements in sleep efficiency and reductions in symptoms of both insomnia and anxiety compared with the control group," says Mathilde Reyt, the study's first author and a postdoctoral researcher at CRIUGM and Concordia University.

"Our findings show that web-based tools offer a promising and clinically relevant approach to promoting sleep and mental health among older adults. This combined digital CBT program represents an important step toward making these treatments more accessible to everyone," concludes Dr. Dang-Vu.

The research team plans to expand its sample size to confirm the program's long-term effects, with particular attention to potential benefits for cognitive function and daytime quality of life among older adults.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260609/New-digital-platform-treats-insomnia-and-anxiety-in-seniors.aspx

New Study: This Surprising Mental Trait Could Be the Key to Beating Insomnia

From inc.com

Constantly tired? A simple factor may be contributing to your inability to find high-quality sleep. Here’s what to know 

Could feeling wiser than your years be worsening your days? Possibly. 

A new study published in Sleep found a link between subjective age (the age you feel) and how well you sleep. People with a higher subjective age reported more symptoms of insomnia and feeling more tired throughout the day. The results will be presented at the Sleep 2026 annual meeting in mid-June. 

The study was conducted by the VA Boston Healthcare System, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the National Sleep Foundation. 

The scientists ultimately found that age discrepancy can act as a predictor in overall health and longevity. In the study, age discrepancy is defined as the mismatch between a person’s subjective age, how old a person feels, and their actual, chronological age. Positive values indicated feeling older while negative values indicated feeling younger. The researchers noted that adults who felt older had more symptoms of insomnia, more sleep-related impairments, and lower overall sleep health and regularity.

“These findings suggest how people perceive their own aging may have important implications for sleep and overall well-being,” said Joseph M. Dzierzewski, the principal investigator of the study. “Understanding subjective age could help inform future approaches to support healthier sleep and quality of life across the lifespan.”

To come to this conclusion, the researchers collected survey responses from 3,177 adults with a mean age of 42.8. Participants were asked questions to assess their subjective age, insomnia, overall sleep health, and sleep-related impairment. The subjects were evaluated on their mental health and asked to self-report any physical health symptoms that may affect their sleep.

The scientists used correlational and regression analyses to look at the associations between age discrepancy and sleep. A parallel mediation, a test to see if any predictors affected the outcome through two or more variables simultaneously, was then used to explore the indirect effects sleep had on physical health. 

The scientists found that those who reported feeling older than their actual age had statistically significant poorer sleep and sleep-related impairments. Additionally, they found that those who had higher age discrepancies also had higher rates of insomnia and worse subjective physical health. 

                                                                                                                                                                     Photo: Getty Images

Key takeaways from the research

Dzierzewski told Inc. that this doesn’t have to start in a doctor’s office; it can begin with a simple internal check. “The question is almost like, how are you feeling? Do you feel older? Do you feel younger? Do you feel right on?”

The good news, he said, is that nothing about this picture is fixed. “Your subjective age is certainly changeable, your sleep is changeable. Staying physically active, eating a good healthy diet, and challenging some of those negative beliefs we have about aging.”

He added that consistently feeling older than your age is “not a warning sign, but something you should pay attention to. It’s a sign that your sleep or your health maybe needs more support than you’re giving it.”

And while the study focused on sleep, Dzierzewski thinks the implications can stretch to other areas of your life. Embracing aging more realistically, not chasing youth, and aligning expectations with where you actually are could, he said, bring everything a little more into balance: “All of these things are changeable.”

https://www.inc.com/lucia-auerbach/new-study-this-surprising-mental-trait-could-be-the-key-to-beating-insomnia/91354563