This Common Lifestyle Issue Can Speed up Aging More Than You Think, Doctors Warn
Now more than ever, there's a global interest in longevity. Sure, people have been searching for the fountain of youth since the beginning of time, but the collective interest in longevity from doctors, pharmaceutical companies, tech tycoons with no shortage of money to invest and even the U.S. government has led to a near obsession with how to live longer.
Perhaps you're familiar with some of the newest longevity hacks people are trying (that may or may not actually work), such as supplement stacking, peptide injections and cold plunges. It's all part of the quest to slow the aging process.
There are so many novel habits people are trying in the name of longevity that it's easy to forget the basics, which have more robust scientific research than the habits health influencers are sharing on social media. For example, a wealth of research has shown that eating a primarily plant-based diet, such as the Mediterranean diet, is linked to living longer. Walking is another simple habit that's linked to slowing the aging process. Ground-breaking? Not really. Powerful? Absolutely.
There's one common lifestyle habit in particular that you may not realize is quietly speeding up the aging process without you even realizing it. Making a change can literally add years to your life.
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The Common Habit That Speeds up Aging, Doctors Warn
According to a Wellness, Sleep, & Circadian Network report, one in three people in the U.S. do not get the recommended seven hours of sleep a night. While the occasional night of poor sleep isn't a big deal, chronically not getting enough sleep can accelerate the aging process.
Dr. Sara Vaughn, MD, an endocrinologist and the chief medical officer of Clair Health, explains that one reason for this is that chronically not getting enough sleep causes damage at a cellular level. "Chronically not getting enough sleep impairs the body's ability to repair and replace damaged tissue. Sleep is an important time for cellular repair," she says.
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Of course, there are times when getting enough sleep is simply out of your control-as with new parents, for example, or someone who struggles with chronic insomnia. That said, Dr. Vaughn explains that when sleep is repeatedly disrupted, oxidative stress and inflammation increase, leading to cellular damage. "Over time, the need for repair and replacement can outpace the body's regenerative capacity. This imbalance-more damage and less effective repair-is thought to contribute to biological aging. You can think of aging partly as damage accumulating faster than the body can repair it," she tells Parade.
As a scientific study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity shows, chronically not getting enough sleep literally damages DNA. That's how deep the damage goes.
Dr. Tommy Wood, BM, BCh, PhD, a neuroscientist and author of The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp At Any Age, says that sleep deprivation also increases the stress hormone cortisol, which can impair the function of stem cells. "If it remains elevated for long periods of time, cortisol can impair the function of the immune system, which would otherwise be doing jobs like identifying senescent [aging] cells to be cleared so that they don't accumulate and cause further issues," he explains.
Dr. Wood says that this increase in cortisol causes inflammation, which speeds up aging. "Sleep deprivation can increase activity of the sympathetic ‘fight or flight' nervous system, which activates the immune system to release inflammatory mediators, called cytokines," he adds.
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He shares that it also seems to activate a core regulator of inflammation signaling in the body, which increases production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, explaining, "In some tissues, especially the brain, sleep normally helps to clear out pro-inflammatory cytokines that accumulate during the day. Without good sleep, inflammation then increases."
Why Not Getting Enough Sleep Makes You Look Older Than You Really Are
The impact of not getting enough sleep isn't just internal; it's external too and can literally change appearance. "Poor sleep affects appearance both immediately and over time," Dr. Vaughn says. She highlights a study of 24 women showing that just two nights of sleep restriction reduced skin hydration, increased water loss from the skin, decreased skin elasticity and viscosity and increased oxidative damage in the skin.
Dr. Wood points to a recent study published in Nature showing that skin aging was increased among people who slept less than 6.5 hours a night. He explains that skin cells are constantly replenished by deeper stem cells that constantly divide, with new cells then migrating up and replacing skin cells as they slough off. He explains that these stem cells can be negatively affected by sleep loss because of increased cortisol, oxidative stress and inflammation, among other factors.
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"These same factors can also damage or impair the production of collagen and elastin, which are proteins that give skin its youthful bounce and integrity, maintaining structural integrity that also helps the skin stay hydrated," he says.
As you can see, consistently getting enough sleep is crucial for living a long, healthy life. It's never too late to improve it either. "One study found that people who improved their sleep in their 50s, 60s, or 70s had lower levels of proteins in their brain linked to dementia," Dr. Wood tells Parade.
With this in mind, instead of obsessing over every longevity hack you come across, focus on the basics, starting with getting to the root cause of anything that's regularly disrupting your sleep. Aging backwards overnight? It really can be that simple.
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Sources:
- Hu, F. B. (2025). Diet strategies for promoting healthy aging and longevity: An epidemiological perspective. Journal of Internal Medicine. 295(4):508-531.
- Ungvari, Z., Fazekas-Pongor, V., Csiszar, A., et al. (2023). The multifaceted benefits of walking for healthy aging: from Blue Zones to molecular mechanisms. GeroScience. 45(6):3211-3239.
- The State of Sleep Health in America 2023. Wellness, Sleep & Circadian Network.
- Dr. Sara Vaughn, MD, endocrinologist and the chief medical officer of Clair Health.
- Carroll, J. E., Cole, S. W., Seeman, T. E., et al. (2016). Partial sleep deprivation activates the DNA damage response (DDR) and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) in aged adult humans.Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 51:223-229.
- Dr. Tommy Wood, BM, BCh, PhD, neuroscientist and author of The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp At Any Age.
- Wang, L., Liu, H., Qin, L., et al. (2024). Cytokine Storm: The Novel Mechanism for Sleep Deprivation-induced Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome. Neuroscience Bulletin. 40(7):1031-1033.
- Léger, D., Gauriau, C., Etzi, C., et al. (2022). "You look sleepy…" The impact of sleep restriction on skin parameters and facial appearance of 24 women. Sleep Medicine. 89:97-103.
- MULTI Consortium, O'Toole, C. K., Song, Z., et al. (2026). Sleep chart of biological ageing clocks in middle and late life. Nature. doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-10524-5.
- Winer, J. R., Mander, B. A., Helfrich, R. F., et al. (2019). Sleep as a Potential Biomarker of Tau and 𝛃-Amyloid Burden in the Human Brain.The Journal of Neuroscience. 39(32):6315-6324.
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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 10:50 AM.