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Restorative, sedative-free slumber can ward off mental and physical ailments.
http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/04/05/deep-sleep-aging/
As we grow old, our nights are frequently plagued by bouts of wakefulness, bathroom trips and other nuisances as we lose our ability to generate the deep, restorative slumber we enjoyed in youth.
But does that mean older people just need less sleep?
Not according to UC Berkeley researchers, who argue in an article published April 5 in the journal Neuron that the unmet sleep needs of the elderly elevate their risk of memory loss and a wide range of mental and physical disorders.
"Nearly every disease killing us in later life has a causal link to lack of sleep," said the article's senior author, Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience. "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."
-- submitted from IRC
Bryce A. Mander, Joseph R. Winer, Matthew P. Walker. Sleep and Human Aging. Neuron DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.02.004
[Ed note. (martyb)] I've certainly noticed that I do not sleep as soundly as I used to — I rarely sleep through an entire night. On the other hand, there is a body of evidence for divided/segmented sleep. How has your sleeping fared as you have gotten older?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by ledow on Monday April 10 2017, @01:17PM (1 child)
Darkness / quiet? Shocking. Who'd have thunk.
Everything else? Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, wake up when you're awake.
It's hardly rocket-science.
To be honest, there's not an activity/habit/procedure in the world that makes me sleep 4 hours like that. It's either nothing or (wants to be) 12 hours. It's not uncommon for me to stay awake all night and then go to work, either.
Too much analysis is what stops people sleeping. "Oh, I've got to get to sleep now or I'll be tired, when did I have that coffee, etc." Your body knows what it's doing and what it wants. Hence the metabolism, etc. stuff.
Sure, help it to fit into what you need for the next day if you can, but spending lots of time on this to come to that conclusion is really why you're not sleeping.
Head on pillow for more than ten minutes and you don't feel sleepy? Your body isn't going to want to sleep. Get up, do something, try again later.
If anything, sticking strictly to hours of darkness and/or schedules is the thing that messes up your body. It never used to do that. You have eyelids to close your eyes, and you have not-atrocious night-vision for a reason.
"Sleep debt" isn't a thing (past about 48 hours). Some people sleep more or less. Trying to "catch up" with others is the problem.
Are you tired? Yes? Sleep. No? Stay up.
Tired but can't sleep? Get up and do something.
Hungry? Eat. (Literally, I will happily eat a four-course meal right before bed, if that's what my body feels like having)
Thirsty? Drink.
Head busy? Try to resolve the problem, or take your mind off it by doing something.
The screen-colour junk? As an amateur astronomer, I have all the kit. It's still a nonsense. Just turn the lights off, your body doesn't care that it was sunny or you were watching a screen five minutes ago. It only cares about not being disturbed by trying to interpret moving light now that you're trying to sleep.
P.S. I have a reputation for "always being asleep". I can happily lay in bed until the afternoon. People forget that I might have been up at 4am still, but that's not always the case.
I have MASSES of caffeine. I literally think I'm immune by now.
I do not make myself go to sleep every night if it's not going to happen.
I have probably the best immune system and health record of anyone I know. Doctors de-register me. I haven't had a sick day in years. I have no medical problems. I haven't taken a tablet for anything in years.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:59PM
Pretty sure that there has literally not been a single day in my entire life when I have ever fallen asleep that quickly. At least not if I was sober.
That's a combination of two issues. The first is that I really can be tired as shit and still lay there for an hour or two before I fall asleep. I can be up for two days straight and I STILL won't fall asleep in only ten minutes. It just doesn't happen that fast. The second is that my natural cycle seems to be slightly longer than a day. So it's great in theory to say "just sleep when you're tired" but then I end up getting two hours of sleep before my alarm goes off and wakes me up for work the next day, ore more likely just sleep right through that alarm and show up to work a couple hours late. Unless I can find a job that's going to let me work dramatically different hours every single day, that's just not possible. I've always wanted to try the 28 hour day, as that seems like it would fit me far better, but I've been wanting to try that for at least a decade and have yet to be in a position where it would actually be possible. What you are advocating would seem to require changing the entire goddamn world around my schedule, which I can't really do. I can't just go home at noon and go to bed if I'm tired, so I sleep when I have time to sleep.