If you feel your sleep patterns and sleep quality are changing with the years, you’re almost certainly not imagining it. What is, perhaps, reassuring, is sleep changes occur throughout life.
From the age of 50 onwards, specifically, however, there are a number of sleep changes commonly experienced. For example, sleep hours for most seniors are likely to decrease by almost half an hour every 10 years. Seniors will wake more often during the night as they grow older, their ‘awake’ periods will grow longer, and they will grow more aware of them than a younger person would. Seniors also experience less REM sleep (REM sleep is when we do our active dreaming, and it’s connected to brain health). Cortisol (our ‘fight or flight’ hormone – which usually decreases in the evening) is stimulated by a lack of REM sleep, which can be another reason why we lie awake for longer when we go to bed.
There are many reasons for nocturia, some of which do not relate specifically to age, but which may play into seniors having broken and less sleep. One of these is older adults have been shown to produce more of their regular quantity of urine at night than during the day. Some medications can contribute to this, as can urinary tract infections, and the accumulation of fluid in the legs (fluid can move to the bladder once a sleeper is lying down). Coupled with lighter sleeping in general, these factors can lead to seniors having to go to the bathroom more frequently than a younger person.
Fortunately, simple changes to lifestyle can often help reduce nocturia. These changes are not demanding to put into action, but they do need to be discussed with your doctor if they impinge on your safety or any advice you have been given by a medical professional.
One of the most obvious places to start with lifestyle change is in reducing fluid intake before going to bed. This includes caffeinated drinks (caffeine is found in both tea and coffee, and also in some sodas). Alcohol should be avoided in the afternoon and evening (it can lull you in to sleep, but encourage you to wake up during the night, and it also reduces REM sleep). If you suffer from fluid accumulation in your legs, try elevating your legs for an hour before you go to sleep. If it is safe to reduce your salt intake, research has shown this can contribute significantly to the number of times in a night you need to urinate.
Because of the tendency to sleep lighter as we grow older, and to therefore be more aware of bladder sensations than a deep sleeper would be, it’s important to try to reduce waking as much as possible. To encourage deeper sleep, try to get to bed at night, and get up in the morning, at the same time each day. Take daily exercise, make sure your bed and pillows are comfortable, and you are using seasonally appropriate bed covers. Minimise noise and light (but always use a low wattage night light to help you find your path to the toilet). Keep your phone by your bed for safety purposes, but don’t browse the internet in the 30 minutes before you want to go to sleep. And if you wake, and can’t get back to sleep, count sheep or read a book or magazine – not your screen!
Above all, don’t put up with frequent trips to the toilet and disrupted sleep. See your GP to discuss the problem.
