The reason why you’re much more tired now than you were in your early twenties

No wonder we’re all yawning at our desks
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Liz Connor15 May 2017

Good quality sleep is hard to come by as you get older.

Not only do long hours at work and family responsibilities eat into what was once valuable sleeping time as a student, but ‘pulling an all nighter’ is a much more painful task.

Where once you could face the next day running on caffeine, now a bad night’s kip can throw off your whole week - leaving you feeling like a zombie for days afterwards.

Now scientists believe that the reason people feel more tired as they get older is because of changes in the brain that mean your body misjudges the signs of fatigue.

In a study published in Neuron, researchers from U.C. Berkeley found that certain brain mechanisms change as we age, preventing us from accurately discerning the right amount of ‘delta’ or deep sleep is necessary.

The review, called “Sleep and Human Aging,”, found that many older people are living in a vicious cycle of unhealthful sleep, where the older we get, the more our ability for restorative sleep erodes, which in turn speeds up the brain’s ageing process.

These changes, the scientists say, can begin as early as the 30s, and slowly decline from there.

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The study even suggests that by the time you turn 50, your quality of sleep could be slashed by up to 50 per cent.

U.C. Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology, Matthew Walker, explained, “It’s almost like a radio antenna that’s weak.”

“The signal is there, but the antenna just can’t pick it up.”

Sleep deprivation places people at risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and depression, while deep sleep is crucial for memory, physical renewal and hormonal regulation.

Unfortunately, there is little that can be done to reverse the issue, but U.C. Berkeley researchers say this information could help develop medication to tackle sleep problems, as well as alternative therapies to help people to get more restorative sleep as they get older.

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