Study shows seniors need less sleep
Don’t feel so bad if you’re an older adult and you’ve just had a rough night with little sleep. According to this news report, a study at the Clinical Research Centre of the University of Surrey showed healthy seniors need less sleep than younger adults, and are less likely to be affected by not getting the same amount of sleep time as them.
Older adults aged 66-83, slept about 20 minutes less than middle-aged adults (40-55 years), who slept 23 minutes less than young adults aged 20-30, the study said.
This is again confirmation that as we age, not only our sleeping time drops, but our sleeping quality as well. Rather alarmingly, deep sleep seems to diminish with age, and it is this type of sleep (sleeping like a baby) that is the best sleep of all.
Some stats of this study:
- 110 healthy people participated. It was not clear how old the age ranges were, but they were divided into 44 young adults, 35 middle aged adults, and 31 older adults.
- The study was carried out on a baseline night (normal sleep), two nights of interrupted sleep, and one night for recovery.
- During the baseline night, younger adults slept on average 433.5 minutes, middle aged adults slept 410 minutes, and older adults slept 390 minutes.
During the baseline night, younger adults had 118.4 minutes of deep sleep, middle aged adults had 85.3 minutes, and older adults had 84.2 minutes.
