Sleep gets better with age

Article first published as Older Adults Get Better Sleep on Technorati.

Researchers have found that sleep gets better with age. Although, people in their 40's feel some difficulty in sleeping, sleep actually improves, when people pass their 50's.

"This flies in the face of popular belief," says Dr. Michael Grandner, lead author of the study. "These results force us to re-think what we know about sleep in older people — men and women."

Researchers from Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed more than 150,000 older people on telephone. They have asked them about their sleep. They have also asked them about the education, depressed mood, race, income and general health.

Researchers have observed that sleep may be affected by poor health but old age is not the single factor affecting the sleep. They found in the survey that sleep problems decrease with age and the least complaints about sleep were found in the people with more than 70 years of age.

Researchers have concluded that advancing age was not associated with increased self-reported sleep disturbance or self-reported tiredness/lack of energy. These results suggest that the often-reported increase in sleep problems with age is a nonlinear phenomenon, mediated by factors other than physiologic aging.