Poor sleep is tied to accelerated brain aging, new study says. Here’s how it impacts people as young as 40

Though sleep deprivation comes for us all on occasion, a new study suggests habitually substandard shut-eye is linked to accelerated brain aging. (Credit: SB Arts Media/Getty Images)

You know the horrors a sleepless night can bring. They haunt you the following day: fatigue, headaches, irritability, and inability to focus, to name a few. Though sleep deprivation comes for us all on occasion, a new study suggests that habitually substandard shut-eye is linked to accelerated brain aging.

While poor sleep quality doesn’t necessarily cause speedier brain aging, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and other U.S. institutions found that poor sleep quality in early middle age is associated with more signs of poor brain health in late middle age. Their findings were published Oct. 23 in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.