The Importance of Good Sleep When We Get Older

We Need Our Sleep at Any Age.

Sleep, in general, is of utmost importance to us. The benefits of a good night’s sleep resound for both younger and older people alike, rejuvenating their mind, body and soul. Dedicating long periods to rest serves the purpose of repairing any damaged cells. Sleep time also refreshes your immune system and muscles to tackle the next days’ activities in full spirits.

As you get older the importance of sleep becomes even more apparent. Naturally, the older you get increases your vulnerability to both physical and mental ailments. Erratic sleep patterns can show an increased risk of suffering from dementia, depression or cognitive reaction times, while longer and solid sleep has proven these factors face a reduction.

Maintaining a healthy mind and body is essential to living your best life as you get older. A good night’s sleep can do wonders to preventing any issue that would prevent you from getting on with what you want to do. There are many concerns expressed from people at an advanced age that getting some good sleep is not always easy, however.

What happens to sleep as we age?

While sleep patterns do remain relatively consistent throughout human lives, ageing does have some factors that prevent a good night’s sleep. The most discussed point would be that your body produces lower levels of growth hormones as you get older. What this means is that the amount of ‘deep sleep’ you get finds itself reduced, which affects the body’s refreshment cycle.

Other common factors that interrupt sleep are generally not age-related but linked to issues usually faced by older people. Stress, lack of exercise, not attending social engagements, and physical pain are a few of the factors that prevent a good night’s sleep, in turn leading to other problems.

Environmental factors can also lead to a reduction in sleep. Studies have shown that reduced sunlight during the day affects how you sleep at night. Even being consistently exposed to unnatural lights such as televisions and computer screens can cause distress in your sleep cycle.

All of these indirect aspects can affect the already vulnerable ‘deep sleep’ cycle you need to keep your internal systems functioning well. As mentioned before, a night of good sleep is essential for your health as you get older – we can elaborate a bit more on its benefits for an ageing person.

Why is maintaining good sleep so important?

We’ve touched generally on the importance of a good night’s rest to stave off mental and physical diseases. Most older people are heading into a stage of their lives where they want to reap the benefits of hard work. After dedicating years and decades to their chosen professions and families, they deserve it.

If you’re heading towards the end of your career, maybe you’ll want to go out with a bang and produce your best work. If you are already in retirement, perhaps you want to do activities that you’ve never had time to do. These include travel, attend more social engagements or learn new skills or hobbies.

All of these require the cognitive mental and physical functions to get the very best out of these activities. The best-executed daily routines are ones with a good sleep behind them. Getting about 7-9 hours of rest a day will increase concentration, reaction times, memory, creativity and physical strength.

The benefits for an older person seem endless in resting well and being recharged for the next day. We do understand that not everyone is in the same personal situation. There are aspects of your environment that are out of your control and do prevent good sleep. There are ways to tackle them, and we’ll speak about a few here.

Tips on getting a good sleep

Sleeping well means addressing some current health ailments you may be experiencing. Most of the issues that disrupt sleep cycles are rooted in three core factors. Emotional problems, daytime health habits, and environmental factors (i.e., your home or workplace) are the most prominent. While the list can be extensive, we provide some tips below that can have a beneficial impact on your sleep cycle.

Reduce exposure to artificial lights – Artificial lights are one of the main reasons why our sleep is reduced or interrupted. In the age of technology, we are looking at computer and mobile device screens a lot of the time. The lights we use at home can also disrupt our sleep. The medical recommendation is that you install low wattage bulbs at home, as well as a reduction in artificial screen usages such as spending time away from the TV and iPad.

Keeping your bedroom environment at an optimum – Your bedroom should be your sleep sanctuary. There should be no items in there that would cause any mental stimulation or be any cause for distraction. A cosy, dark, quiet room is the best kind of environment to sleep. Create this space by removing clocks, televisions and digital devices to reduce anxiety.

Make a consistent sleep routine – Keep to a schedule can be very important in reducing sleep interruptions. Going to bed earlier, and blocking out any noises such as snoring or device noise can be powerful remedies. That can be accomplished by earplugs and eye masks when sleeping. Sleeping earlier and waking up earlier, are very beneficial to the routine, making sure you do so the same times every day.

How to make those essential sleep changes

By now, you probably understand how important sleep is to your livelihood as you get older. We’ve listed a few things that can help make a change to improving your sleep cycles. As aforementioned, we do understand certain situations make it difficult to make changes in your sleep patterns, but every little change helps.

You can make a start by exercising a bit more, addressing any node that causes mental stress, and changing your diet to be more nutritiously beneficial. One step at a time, you can increase measures to sleep well and get the best out of your living standards as you enter the golden years.

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