Aging is associated with several well-described changes in patterns of sleep. Typically, there is a phase advance in the normal circadian sleep cycle: older people tend to go to sleep earlier in the evening but also to wake earlier. They may also wake more frequently during the night and experience fragmented sleep.
Older people wake up more often because they spend less time deep sleep. Other causes include needing to get up and urinate (nocturia), anxiety, and discomfort or pain from long-term (chronic) illnesses. Sleep difficulty is an annoying problem.
What Does Sleep Look Like in Older Adults? According to their internal body clock, most older adults need to go to sleep around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. Many people fight their natural inclination to sleep and choose to go to bed several hours later instead.
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as all adults—7 to 9 hours each night. But, older people tend to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier than they did when they were younger.
Shifting sleep schedule: As people age, the body's circadian rhythms actually shift forward in time. This shift is called a phase advance. Many older adults experience this phase advance as getting tired earlier in the afternoon and waking up earlier in the morning.
The Best Time to Sleep Is Between 8 p.m. and Midnight
To align our sleep schedules with our body's natural cycles (our circadian rhythms), adults should go to bed when it's dark out, after 8 p.m. We also get deeper, more restorative sleep when our sleep time begins before midnight.
Contrary to popular opinion, older people don't need less sleep than the average person. In fact, adults require about the same amount of sleep from their 20s into old age, although the number of hours per night varies from person to person.
However, most people start experiencing a decline in their energy levels by the time they reach their mid-thirties. And this decline in energy levels can be attributed to various factors, including changes in metabolism, hormonal changes, and lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and stress.
Overall, people went to sleep at 11:14pm (S.D. = 1hr 35min) and woke at 6:32am (S.D. = 1hr 51min), achieving 7hrs and 18 minutes of sleep (S.D. = 1hr 51min).
It is very difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4, which together are called deep sleep. There is no eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened during deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes after they wake up.
It can be a normal response to physical activity, emotional stress, boredom, or lack of sleep, but it can also signal a more serious mental or physical condition.
As you age your body produces lower levels of growth hormone, so you'll likely experience a decrease in slow wave or deep sleep (an especially refreshing part of the sleep cycle). When this happens you produce less melatonin, meaning you'll often experience more fragmented sleep and wake up more often during the night.
A typical circadian rhythm in humans is one where peak alertness is around 2-3 hours after awakening and 9-10 hours after awakening, and where fatigue is most likely at around 3 AM, if you wake up like most people do at around 7-9 AM in the morning.
Results show that the faces of sleep-deprived individuals were perceived as having more hanging eyelids, redder eyes, more swollen eyes and darker circles under the eyes. Sleep deprivation also was associated with paler skin, more wrinkles or fine lines, and more droopy corners of the mouth.
Poor sleep habits such as irregular sleep-wake times and daytime napping may contribute to insomnia. Caffeine, alcohol and some medications can also interfere with sleep. Primary sleep disorders are more common in the elderly than in younger persons.
Insomnia in the Elderly
In elderly individuals, sleep‐maintenance insomnia and early awakening are more common complaints than sleep‐onset insomnia; this is likely due to the age‐related changes in sleep architecture and circadian rhythm described above.
If your school or work schedule requires you to be up between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m., these are the suggested bedtimes: School-age children should go to bed between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Teens should try to go to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Adults should try to go to sleep between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.
President Obama reportedly slept around 5 hours a night, preferring to hit the sack well past midnight and wake at 7 A.M. Sleep patterns like this are mostly dictated by our circadian rhythms, but these rhythms can be flexible depending on our personal schedules.
Younger people wake up at 8:17 a.m. while the older population gets up at 7:25 a.m. The 55–59 age class rise the earliest at 7:08 a.m. The biggest sleepers are younger with an average of 7 hours and 26 minutes of sleep per night while 45–59 years old sleep the least (7 hours and two minutes on average).
While a 30- to 90-minute nap in older adults appears to have brain benefits, anything longer than an hour and a half may create problems with cognition, the ability to think and form memories, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The average nap is about one hour, or 60.2 minutes. Naps may get shorter as we age, to about 43 minutes in adults ages 55 and older. Adults nap 94.3 days each year, on average. 52.6% of nappers feel groggy after waking up.