Ahhhh - sleep, a restful way to pass time in between everything else that we do. Knowing the importance of sleep can provide the reasons we need to place it as a priority for our health and well-being. Many people have an overall clean bill of health and still have trouble sleeping restfully. The quality and quantity of our sleep can be affected by numerous factors, including age, body temperature and the time of day. As a teenager or college student, staying up late to study and rising early reduced your number of Zzzzz's. Approaching mid-life, sleep may be shortened by the tasks that need to get done after putting the kids to bed. In your senior years the sleep saga continues. The National Sleep Foundation has determined that 13% of men and 36% of women over the age of 65 take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep. As years pass your age and wisdom may increase, but hours spent in restful sleep decline. Some variation exists from person-to-person but, on average, 8 hours of sleep a night is the goal.
Believe it or not, you can't catch up on sleep. Once it's lost, sleep can't be recovered. The urge to nap during the day is not a normal part of growing older. In fact, short naps during the day may actually interfere with quality sleep at night. When sleep is shortened, it's usually REM sleep that suffers. This type of sleep is important for the brain. It helps with learning, thinking and organizing information during waking hours. Sleep problems can also arise if you travel to different time zones or you work shifts. The body seems to accommodate these types of disruptions pretty well when they occur once in awhile. However, if the normal sleep-wake cycle is disrupted over the long haul, the brain becomes out of sync with the environment, which can impact all that you do.
If you're struggling with sleepless nights, Click here to read about Sleeping Soundly - 10 Factors That May Steal Your Sleep. If your sleepless nights persist, scheduling an appointment with your healthcare provider can help determine the underlying factors.