A new study has shown that normal sleep is related to healthy aging, thereby reinforcing the idea that good sleep is of utmost importance for good health.
The study, authored by Sonia Ancoli-Israel, PhD, of the University of California at San Diego, and colleagues, focused on 2,226 women 60 years of age or older.Reports of use of sleeping aids, daytime somnolence, napping, sleep latency, sleep maintenance insomnia, early morning awakening, snoring, overall perceived sleep quality, and sleep duration were all assessed.
According to the results, 20.8 percent of the women were categorized as “successful agers”. Items related to less daytime napping and fewer complaints of sleep maintenance insomnia best predicted successful aging.
There was no direct relationship between use of sedative-hypnotics and successful aging. Increased severity of sleep disturbance also predicted lower self-rated “successful aging” and a greater difference between perceived and actual age, and this result again remained significant after controlling for depressive symptom severity.
“Our findings that reports of better sleep are related to successful aging reinforce the idea that good sleep is of utmost importance for good health,” said Dr. Ancoli-Israel.
“Health care professionals need to ask their patients – of all ages – about sleep and help those with poor sleep to find ways for improvement.”
Advertisement
Also, older people often sleep less deeply and wake up more often throughout the night, which may be why they may nap more often during the daytime.
Advertisement
Not sleeping well can lead to a number of problems. Older adults who have poor nighttime sleep are more likely to have a depressed mood, attention and memory problems, excessive daytime sleepiness, more nighttime falls and use more over-the-counter or prescription sleep aids.
The study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
Source-ANI
SPH