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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @11:55PM
The majority of your analysis is invalid. The most important factor in sleeping by far is your perception/state of mind. The activities you think will help your sleep will and the activities you think won't help won't, so all your results are skewed. You should drill down into the science, not the random sampling of one if you want real results. If placebo effects are good enough for you that's perfectly fine, just don't expect them to be just as valid for everyone else.
The fact that you still require an alarm clock (#2) means you're not getting your best sleep.