Getting good sleep gets harder and harder to do as we age. Unmet sleep needs of the elderly elevate their risk of many mental and physical disorders. It is shown that older people get less sleep but do we really need less sleep as we get older? A recent study in the journal Neuron says no.

Matthew Walker, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley says: “Nearly every disease killing us in later life has a causal link to lack of sleep. We’ve done a good job of extending life span, but a poor job of extending our health span. We now see sleep, and improving sleep, as a new pathway for helping remedy that.”

 

Disorders that disrupt sleep:

1. Sleep-disordered breathing

A. Causes sleep to be fragmented

B. Causes heavy fatigue the next day

C. Increases your risk of metabolic disorders and disease

D. Higher risk if you snore heavily or feel fatigued during the day without explanation

E. Comes with the cessation of breathing for a period of time (also called sleep apnea) which limits deep sleep

F. Sleep will improve with weight loss with the obese population

2. Voluntary sleep deprivation

A. Choosing to not go to bed is usually due to too much screen time

B. Blue light can keep us awake and not feel sleepy

C. I advise reading a book before bed instead

3. An anxious/worried mind

A. Don’t work on stressful projects 1-2 hrs before bed

B. Keep a notepad next to bed to write down your thoughts so they can leave your brain

4. Asthma

A. Coughing and wheezing make it hard to sleep

5. Arthritis, back pain and fibromyalgia

A. Taking a warm bath before bed can help sleeping with these problems

6. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (usually from smoking)

7. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

A. Sometime hormones can be off and fatigue during the day can be related to restlessness at night

8. Depression

9. Heartburn

10. Nocturia (getting up to go to the bathroom)

A. Stop all diet pop

B. Minimize salt intake

C. No liquids 3 hours before bed

D. If taking diuretics, take in morning

E. Go to the bathroom right before bedtime

11. Menopause

12. Restless Leg Syndrome(RLS)

A. This is something I personally deal with, getting up and walking can help

B. RLS is also worse for me if I do not exercise during the day

 

Poor sleep has been linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and even getting a stroke. And the scary part is that our transition from great, long lasting, deep sleep to dissatisfying sleep can start as early as in our 30s. This can cause a higher risk of mental and physical problems as early as in our 50s. That is scary.

More and more people are turning to drugs to help us sleep better but Walker says to do otherwise. These are ineffective substitutes for natural sleep cycles the brain needs. “Don’t be fooled into thinking sedation is real sleep. It’s not,” he says. Eliminating natural barriers to sleep is far healthier than taking drugs.

 

Not getting adequate sleep not only increases our risk for disease, it also speeds up our aging. The real troubling part of this is how much of a double edge sword it can be. The part of the brain that deteriorates the earliest with aging is also the same part that helps us get good amounts of deep sleep. But, when we don’t get good deep sleep, that aids in the aging process. Getting older aids a decline in NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep among other aspects.

Not getting enough sleep and varying your sleep/wake times can cause:

• Decline in cognitive function
• Weight gain
• Decrease in leptin: a hormone that helps us with satiety and energy balance
• Increase in ghrelin: a hormone that makes you feel hungry. It increases when the stomach is empty and decreases when the stomach is stretched.
• Difficulty losing weight especially closer to our goal weight
• More resistance to insulin which can damage our vascular system
• High blood pressure
• Suppressed immune system making illness come more often and for longer
• Increased hardening of arteries resulting in a higher risk for a blood clot
• Decrease in NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) the next couple days
• Increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that results in a higher risk of hyperinsulinemia and hyperglycemia
• Irritability and inability to relate to others
• Decreased body awareness and higher risk of injury
• Increased risk of depression

 

Therefore, getting a good night's sleep is one of the best things we can do for our health, physically and mentally. Youthful, healthy sleep helps transfer memories and information from the hippocampus, which provides the brain’s short-term storage, to the prefrontal cortex, which consolidates the information, acting as the brain’s long-term storage. As we age, sadly, the brain’s functions during sleep changes and this is linked to memory loss later in life.