Does childhood mental health impact sleep in midlife?

According to the NHS, most healthy adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. New BCS70 research looking at activity monitor data has revealed that people who experienced poor mental health in childhood are more likely to be sleeping for less than six hours or more than nine hours per night in midlife.

If you are struggling with your mental health:

Call Samaritans for free at 116 123. You can call the Samaritans helpline about anything that is upsetting you. They are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The charity Mind also has a useful list of other mental health helplines on their website.

What we asked you

As part of our surveys at ages 5 and 10, your parents and teachers answered questions about your mental health. The researchers used these answers along with information you provided yourselves at ages 16 and 42.

When you were 46, we asked you to wear an activity monitor for a week. This monitor recorded your sleeping patterns. We also asked you to keep a sleep diary detailing when you went to bed, fell asleep, woke up, and got out of bed. Based on the activity monitor and sleep diary data, the researchers calculated your average sleep patterns and then explored its link to your mental health in early life.

What the researchers found

The researchers at UCL found that study members who experienced poorer mental health at ages 5-16 were more likely to be sleeping less than six hours at age 46. They found this was the case even after considering your mental health in late adulthood.

Interestingly, there seemed to be a difference between the amount of sleep you recorded in your sleep diaries and that recorded by the activity monitors. While 15% of people felt that they were not getting regular sleep, the activity monitors suggested that 30% were sleep-deprived or sleeping too much. The researchers account for the drawbacks of each of the two ways of recording sleep. They suggest further research needs to look at how people perceive and report healthy sleep.

Why this research matters

Good sleep quality is known to improve mental health, and vice versa. With poor mental health rising among children within the UK, it is important to understand its long-term effects.

Lead researcher, Tom Metherell (UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies) said:

“Past research has linked early life mental health issues to various later life outcomes such as income, excessive drinking, as well as physical and mental health issues in adulthood. Our findings on the amount of sleep this generation gets in midlife adds to this research and can allow us to appreciate the full potential of interventions in early life.  Sleep disturbances can have a detrimental impact on physical health and mortality in the long run. Our findings suggest a clear need to better support mental health and wellbeing for children so that abnormal sleeping patterns that hamper quality of life and productivity in late adulthood can be reduced.”

Read the full paper

‘Associations between early-life mental health and abnormal sleep duration in midlife: findings from a prospective cohort study in Great Britain’ by Thomas E. Metherell, George B. Ploubidis & Darío Moreno-Agostino was published in February 2026 in the European Journal of Epidemiology website.