Want to stay young? Sleep properly: expert tells UAE

Dubai: If you are in search of an elixir or magic potion to preserve your youth, the answer isn’t tucked in a bottle or written in a secret magical book — it’s in your bed. If you use it properly, that is.

A medical expert at the American Academy of Anti-Ageing Medicine Conference at the H Hotel on Saturday said sleep — between seven and nine hours for adults set in a normal sleeping pattern — is one of the few natural things people can do to delay ageing. This free remedy not only helps keep a person younger externally but also internally.

“The sleep pattern is innate within us and there are specific patterns that have to be followed in order for all systems of our body to work correctly,” Dr Lena Edwards, a certified anti-ageing expert and speaker at the conference, said.

The system, called circadian rhythm, is the central clock system through which all body functions are connected. A disruption in this rhythm causes the body systems to function abnormally.

“If that clock system and clock communication are dysfunctional or made to be dysfunctional due to sleep disturbance, it will affect eating behaviour, mood, cognition, and a lot of other things,” Dr Edwards said.

In the UAE, sleep experts said an estimated 20 to 30 per cent of the working population in the country complain of poor sleep quality based on a recent Gulf News report.

This practice should be remedied as the more often a person breaks his sleeping pattern, the more likely the stress hormone cortisol will plague his body that could trigger other lifestyle-related problems, Dr Edwards said, quoting several studies.

“Sleep depravation has influence on hormones and has a detrimental impact on the circadian clock rhythm connecting the body clock system that will cause an increase in appetite, increase in food intake, which may contribute to the formation of obesity and many different types of cardiovascular diseases as well,” Dr Edwards said. These diseases contribute to a faster wear and tear process in the body.

Achieving longevity and youth therefore has more to do with keeping healthy body processes inside and not only taking care of what’s outside for aesthetics purposes. But sleep also has visible positive results on the skin.

A study released by the University Hospitals Case Medical Centre in Ohio earlier this year said inadequate sleep is correlated with reduced skin health and accelerates skin ageing while those who have regular adequate sleep have a stronger defence against elements that hurt the skin and toxins.

Dr Edwards said that even if a person uses the latest scientific breakthroughs to keep ageing at bay, unhealthy lifestyle options such as lack of normal sleeping pattern, smoking, alcohol intake, and stress can trump all of it.