Sleep and Aging
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as young adults—between 7-9 hours each night. But older people tend to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier than they did when they were younger. And they may nap more during the day. If you sleep too much during the day, it may be hard to fall asleep at night. Also, feeling sick or being in pain can make it hard to sleep. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, the next day you may be:
- irritable,
- forgetful,
-depressed,
- likely to have more falls or accidents.
There are two kinds of sleep—REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep. We dream mostly during REM sleep, and have the deepest sleep during non-REM sleep. As people get older, they spend less time in deep sleep, which may be why older people are often light sleepers.
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