Some sleep disorders also become more common later in life. Such difficulties can cut into the time older adults spend in deep sleep, when the body repairs tissues, shores up its immune function and processes memories. Some medications cause agitation, restless legs or other side effects that can keep people up at night. Older adults are more likely to have pain or illnesses that interrupt sleep and often find themselves waking more often to use the bathroom. Foley and colleagues at the National Institute on Aging found that more than 50 percent of older adults complained of having sleeping difficulty, and that their sleep troubles were often associated with health problems ( Sleep, Vol. In one older but notable national survey, Daniel J. Unfortunately, getting quality sleep can become more difficult as people age. Sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, for instance, can disrupt sleep cycles and leave people drowsy after a full night of sleep. But in many cases, excess slumber is probably a side effect of other medical problems, rather than a cause. Too much sleep, like too little, appears to increase the risk of some diseases. Scientists are still sorting out why sleeping too much is problematic. That increased inflammation was associated with a greater mortality risk, particularly in those who were short on sleep ( Sleep, Vol. Martica Hall, PhD, and colleagues followed older adults and found those who reported regularly getting less than six hours or more than eight hours of sleep per night had more inflammatory markers in their blood. Mounting evidence suggests that poor sleep fuels inflammation, which can lead to a variety of diseases including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. "Lower-quality sleep is associated with cognitive problems, as well as a whole host of physical problems," says Thomas Neylan, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies sleep's role in metabolic health, cognitive function and neurodegenerative disorders. That relationship doesn't seem to change too much with age," says psychologist Michael Grandner, PhD, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona.īut the quality of the sleep you get is just as important as the quantity, if not more so, sleep experts say. "We have 50 years of data showing that people who sleep between seven and eight hours live the longest. Many discussions of sleep are centered around how many hours a person clocks each night. "Those changes might be a contributing factor to some of the changes we see in general health, cognition and mental health as people age." Quantity and quality "We see very large changes to sleep physiology with aging," says Michael Scullin, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University who studies sleep neuroscience and cognition. It's also associated with cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease. Insufficient sleep increases the risk of disorders, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, stroke and depression. Increasingly, scientists are discovering that how much and how well you sleep throughout adulthood can be a big factor in how healthy you stay into your golden years. Now, the sleep-deprived American public is learning (the hard way) that sleep is a critical third pillar of a healthy lifestyle. For years, public health messages have stressed the importance of diet and physical activity.
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