![]() So this is one where it’s not yet possible to say whether it’s a myth that older people need less sleep. Yet the idea of changes in the processes underlying circadian rhythms as we age, also seems compelling. So this suggests that when they really need the sleep they can get it and that, just maybe, the rest of the time they’re not sleep-deprived.Īfter examining the findings of 320 studies an expert panel convened by the National Sleep Foundation in the US recommends seven-to-nine-hours sleep a night for adults up to the age of 64 and seven-to-eight hours for the over 65s. The followed day, tired out, the older people found it just as easy to snooze as the young people. They monitored their brain activity all night and every time they detected slow-wave activity, they blasted the room with a noise, to disturb them. So this time the technicians made sure they were lacking in sleep. Once again the older adults found it harder, implying that either their body clocks were keeping them awake or they hadn’t built up as much of a sleep debt as the young people. ![]() This time people were asked to try to nap at various times of day. ![]() But the next study, conducted by some of the same researchers, this time at the University of Surrey, added an extra twist. This study doesn’t rule out the idea that the body clocks of the older people were preventing them sleeping during the day, even if they needed it. You could interpret this as meaning that they needed more sleep than the older people, but there is also the possibility that they were more tired out with a greater sleep debt in the first place because they’d been going to bed late. The 60-to-72-year-olds slept for an average of 7.5 hours each day, while the 18-to-32-years-olds managed almost nine hours. In a 2008 study, a study conducted at Brigham Women’s Hospital in the US, gave people the chance to sleep for 16 hours a day for several days. Instead the lack of sleep in the night is causing sleepiness in the daytime, hence the need for a nap to make up for the lost sleep.īut the debate doesn’t end there. Perhaps the daytime napping isn’t preventing sleep at night. It’s simply that they have a narrower window in which to sleep. So changes in the body clock stop older people getting to sleep and keep older people awake, maybe, then, it is a myth that they need less sleep. But the finding that older people sleep at more specific times suggests that there is a narrower range of times in which people past retirement age are able to get to sleep and stay asleep. In this study it was the men in their 40s who seemed to get the least sleep, which is unusual. Most woke early and went to bed relatively early. Among the young people there was a range of early risers and night owls, but the older group was more homogenous. Five thousand people from around the world did, which has provided a snapshot of global sleeping habits of people of different ages. Users of the app are asked about their typical sleep patterns and can choose whether to share that data the researchers. They found that, once again, the older people felt sleepy at different times from the younger people and had different timings of slow-wave activity in the brain. Then all this data was analysed in relation to a sleep diary the people had kept for the previous week, in order to see how the pattern of sleepiness and slow brainwaves varied according to propensity to be morning or evening types. The slow-wave activity in the volunteers’ brains was also measured several times during the day and night. These feelings of sleepiness vary throughout the day and night and in sleep deprivation experiments such as this, they are taken to reflect processes related to the body clock such as changes in body temperature at different times of day and the release of the hormone melatonin in the evening. Staff kept them awake for the entire time, regularly asking them to assess how sleepy they felt. In a new study from Russia, 130 people went to a laboratory one morning and then stayed there all day and overnight. They might still need the sleep, but they can’t get it and when they do fall into a slumber, the quality of sleep is not as good as when they were younger. ![]() Studies have demonstrated the clock does seem to shift, leading people to wake earlier in the morning and go to bed earlier at night. So if we imagine for a moment that older people do need the same amount of sleep, why then do they sleep for fewer hours? One hypothesis is that the aging process disrupts their circadian rhythms, causing them to wake earlier than they should.
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