Physiological and mental health changes that affect sleep<\/h2>\n
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While menopause is a concern in middle age, people who are older could be dealing with\u00a0multiple health conditions\u00a0(like heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, back problems, and acid reflux)\u00a0that could indirectly affect sleep quality. Pain or discomfort associated with these medical conditions might mean they have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep. Medications that are prescribed for many of these conditions can also disrupt sleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sleep disorders like sleep apnea are more common in aging adults and conditions like\u00a0restless legs syndrome can worsen as you grow older too. Neurological diseases like Parkinson’s or\u00a0Alzheimer’s\u00a0could also be affecting how well older adults sleep at night (via WebMD<\/a>). It is also not uncommon for aging adults to feel depressed or anxious; mental health conditions like these can have a profound impact on quality of sleep, too. Social isolation coupled with a lack of physical activity could also negatively impact sleep, per Yale Medicine<\/a> geriatric and sleep medicine specialist Brienne Miner. A result of aging-related fatigue in itself, long naps can actually take away from quality sleep at night. Feeling the urge to pee more at night as you grow older can also be a culprit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Miner thinks that addressing the underlying physical, mental health, and other concerns can lead to better sleep at night. Fortunately, aging and its related effects on your body and mind don’t mean that you’re doomed to have bad-quality sleep forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Some of the advice sleep experts recommend for aging adults also applies to all age groups: Refrain from screen time before bed, get more exercise during the day, establish a relaxing and consistent night-time routine, and avoid alcohol before bed (via Sleep Foundation). “Your body is not as good at metabolizing alcohol as you get older; you can’t drink the same amount in your older age that you could when you were younger. It’s the same with caffeine and nicotine,” explained\u00a0Brienne Miner (per Yale Medicine).<\/p>\n If physical or mental health concerns are disrupting your sleep, work with your healthcare providers to address your sleep concerns.\u00a0As for just how much sleep you should be getting at night, there is a popular misconception that older adults don’t require as much sleep as others. But there actually isn’t a whole lot of difference between the sleep time recommended for those between\u00a018 and 64 (7-9 hours of sleep) and those over 65 (7-8 hours of sleep), per National Sleep Foundation<\/a>. This doesn’t mean you have to still stick to the same sleep times as before, though (via Yale Medicine). If changes in your hormone levels or\u00a0circadian rhythm dictate that you go to bed at 7 p.m. and wake up at 3 or 4 a.m., there’s nothing wrong with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ultimately, good sleep is a requirement at any age; aging might just mean you have to be more mindful about getting it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you think about aging and sleep, you often look for bad sleeping habits that are aging you, like drinking too much caffeine at night or not switching off from screen time before bed.\u00a0Rarely, if ever, do you think about how the aging process itself could be contributing to changes in sleep. That is, until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleep-hygiene"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Getting better quality of sleep as you age<\/h2>\n
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