How To Sleep Better As An Older Adult
Each year as you turn the calendar, you might notice you wake up more throughout the night, need a little more coffee in the morning to get started or find yourself nodding off mid-morning or afternoon. According to the Mayo Clinic, some age-related tossing and turning is a normal part of aging. However, there are things you can and should do to counter it since sleep is so important for healthy aging, helping you focus during the day, boosting your mood and warding off disease.
Learn more about how much sleep you need as you get older, how your sleep patterns change and how to get better ZZZs here.
Why Sleep Is So Important
Getting a good night's sleep is important for all of us at every age. It helps us maintain peak health and a sense of well-being and much more.
Better Concentration and Productivity
Just about anyone you ask will tell you that they can face the day with more vim and vigor after a good night's sleep. Here are a few reasons why that is, whether you are working in the office, from home, or have retired and are taking on personal projects
You can spend less time recovering from distractions, such as chatty neighbors or barking dogs, and re-focus on the task at hand.
You will make better decisions with a rested mind and won't be clouded by excessive daytime sleepiness.
Your short term and long term memory will improve or at least stay steady, which is especially important for those 50 and over since the fight against memory loss begins at this age. Good sleep lets our brain absorb and process all that we experience and learn throughout the day, assisting with information retention.
Reduced Risk of Weight Gain
We all need to keep our weight in check as we grow older. Our metabolism slows down due to factors such as muscle loss, less physical activity and the natural aging process. Further, there have been many studies over the years linking obesity and poor sleep hygiene and erratic sleep patterns. The reasons for this uptick in weight associated with insomnia and other sleep issues might be related to the lack of energy associated with less sleep or a weakened will when it comes to caloric intake. A lack of sleep also affects the body's ability to secrete growth hormone (GH) as we age. Our ability to reach the slow-wave sleep (SWS) phase, which is when GH secretion occurs, begins to slow down at the same rate. Additionally, insulin resistance becomes a greater factor when the body becomes sleep-deprived. All of this conspires to make it more challenging to manage a healthy weight, so it is important to focus on good sleep to facilitate a spectrum of means of boosting our body's capacity for fat burning and our mind's resistance to temptation.
Lowered Instances of Inflammation
Lifestyle factors are often cited as causes for increased inflammation, and sleep can definitely be a contributing factor. Your body might have the same response to inadequate sleep as it has to stress, causing an inflammatory response, so focusing on good sleep can help you stave off chronic inflammation and its symptoms, including pain, heat, and swelling.
How Much Sleep Do I Need?
As we age, our sleep patterns and amount of sleep need to change to reflect this. The average amount of time each night an adult from age 26-64 needs falls between a solid 7-9 hours. The keyword here is "solid" and not disturbed sleep, which becomes a more complicated goal as we grow older. There are many reasons getting adequate sleep becomes challenging:
Changing Circadian rhythms and sleeping patterns as a natural part of the aging process.
Chronic medical conditions that sometimes accompany aging can include sleep disorders, heart disease, depression, diabetes, sleep apnea, arthritis, high blood pressure, or menopause and other hormonal conditions.
Medications that have side effects that cause pain or insomnia.
Emotional issues associated with the aging process or due to children leaving home, retirement or loss of a spouse.
Lifestyle changes and emotional considerations, such as selling a home and moving to a small apartment.
Any of these factors and others can make any of us prone to sleep difficulties, but there are plenty of ways to improve older adult sleep quality. It isn't hopeless, and with some strategies and commitment, you can improve your sleep.
What Can I Do to Improve My Sleep?
Since a good night's sleep is as important as healthy eating for seniors and senior fitness, it requires the same level of work and devotion to stay healthy throughout your 50s and beyond.
1. Good Sleep Habits
It is important to develop and practice good sleep habits at any age, but we could get away with some less-than-ideal nights of sleep in our 20s, 30s and even our 40s. The negative effects are more immediate once we reach a certain age, and we just have to work harder to get to sleep and stay asleep. Here are some essential sleep habits you should adopt and implement:
Set a sleep schedule and stick to it. Decide the time you want to fall to sleep and the time you need to wake up to meet at least your minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night. If you want to wake up at 6:00am, go to bed by 11:00 p.m.
Turn off the television, computer and smartphone. Once you get to bed, remove all distractions, especially those that light up the room. Turn off the stimulus and turn off your mind to let yourself fall gently asleep.
Be careful of what you eat before bedtime. Avoid going to bed hungry or overly full. Eat a good and satisfying dinner several hours before it is time to go to bed to allow your body to properly digest. Additionally, avoid caffeine, alcohol and nicotine for several hours before it is time to turn out the lights and go to sleep since each substance can inhibit or disrupt your sleep patterns.
Avoid daytime naps. We all love an occasional siesta, but if short and sweet nights are preventing us from reaching our 7-9 hours of continuous sleep, you need to slash them from your plans.
Get plenty of physical activity. Regular physical activity, especially outdoor activity, can help your body relax at night and let you get to sleep. Johns Hopkins reports that physical activity increases the amount of slow-wave sleep we get, which as you remember also spurs the secretion of GH.
2. Good Sleep Environment
We already mentioned how important it is to turn off all your electronic devices and turn off the lights as you slip under the covers, and we meant it. It is crucial that your bedroom is for sleeping versus computing since we become more sensitive to blue light over the years. Blue light tells our brain, whether we want it to or not, that we are awake and ready to take in information. When you turn off all the lights and screens, you are training or retraining your brain to associate darkness with sleep. If you need to do a little reading to nod off, read a book using a low-watt light bulb that you can click off with your remote control as you drift into sleep.
3. Develop a More Consistent Bedtime Routine
In addition to creating a consistent sleep schedule, set up activities that prepare you to sleep before you slip into bed. Take a warm bath in Epsom salts, or at least soak your feet, use an oil diffuser with essential oils for aromatherapy or do a gentle stretching routine. As noted above, read a good, enthralling book for an hour or so before falling asleep or until you naturally slip into sleep.
4. Let Your Mind and Body Slow Down Close to Bedtime
Take some time to let your mind and body slow down before bedtime. Many of the pre-sleep activities can help with this, but you can take it a step farther by doing some type of meditation to help you release stress and anxiety of the day and its activities and let your mind and body relax.
5. Add More Pillows to the Mix
If you are dealing with an injury or chronic inflammation, use soft or therapeutic pillows to ease your aches and pains. You can use the pillows to raise your legs for better blood flow or simply as a way to find comfort.
6. Change Your Sleeping Environment and Bedding
Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures, so if you can't sleep in your main bedroom, try spending a night in a guest room. Or you might just need a new mattress and pillows to support your body and provide optimal comfort. A good night's sleep is worth the investment, so take a trip to a local bedroom furniture store or department and give some mattresses a test run.
7. Aerobic Exercise Helps Seniors Sleep Better
Aerobic exercise causes the body to release endorphins, which helps you relax, relieve stress, turn off your mental chatter and drift into a sweet slumber.
Diet Tips to Improve Sleep
There are several foods that help to promote improved sleep in addition to an overall healthy diet. Here are a few foods and beverages you might consider consuming 3-4 hours before bedtime:
Almonds
Turkey
Chamomile tea
Fatty fish
Tart cherry juice
Passionflower tea
It’s Time to Get a Good Night's Sleep
Hopefully, some of these tips will help you get a better, longer and deeper night's sleep to help support you throughout the coming years. An online health coach like Mighty Health can help you track your fitness activities and your dietary intake to make sure you are doing everything possible to get to sleep and reap all the benefits each day. We give you the tools you need to take a closer look at all of your health-related habits and see how they relate to your lack of adequate sleep, giving you the information you need to make adjustments that improve your sleep, health and overall well-being.
