To Nap or Not to Nap?

Feeling well is important to living well. And I've read lately that the quantity and quality of your sleep is very important to your health and feeling of well being. But... my sleep pattern is not at all regular. I've found myself taking short naps lately, too, sometimes falling asleep while I'm lying down reading a book after lunch. I've heard that people don't need as much sleep when they get older, but is that true? Are naps messing up my nighttime sleep even more? Do I need to worry that my sleep habits seem to have changed as I've gotten older?



Truthfully, I've never been a deep sleeper, often waking very early in the morning - typically at about 3:00 - and then not being able to get back to sleep for an hour or more. I always blamed work circumstances from 20 or 30 years ago that often required me to get up that early to drive to distant work sites and arrive by 7:00 am. I have always fallen asleep easily... too easily, sometimes... but I wasn't sure how to best handle the early waking. Sometimes I'd just turn on the radio at low volume to a talk show and listen, sometimes for a couple of hours, until I fell back asleep. Then I decided to stop wasting time lying in bed and I just began getting up at 3:00 am. When I did that I would, of course, be tired early in the evening, but I operated fairly well on that schedule, except when I had to attend a function in the evening. Have you ever fallen asleep at a party? I have... embarrassing! After a period of extreme early rising, my sleep schedule eventually returns to something more "normal." But what is the best way to handle this when it happens? Should I just get up early, maybe take a nap later? Do I really need 8 hours of sleep now that I'm older and retired?

According to the experts I read, insomnia is very common in older people, and can be a major health problem, affecting many other aspects of our health, but it's sometimes the result, rather than the cause, of existing health issues. The important thing is that we actually still need just as much sleep as younger people, but many of us consistently do not get the sleep we need as we age.

According to a Web MD article I read, as people get older, they tend to move into something called "advanced sleep phase syndrome," in which you naturally both get sleepier earlier and wake earlier than when you were younger. Wow, I think I've been in that phase since my late 30's! But according to Web MD, many seniors rebel against any change in their bedtime and continue staying up late. Then they wake earlier with the result that they don't get as much sleep as they really require. When this happens consistently, they end up sleep deprived. I think one of my friends has this problem. She hates to give up and go to bed, and often stays up very late, reading or knitting and watching TV. I envy her ability to stay up that late... I usually start getting tired around 8:30 or 9:00 pm... but she does complain about being tired a lot of the time.

There are some common sense measures we all know about that help sleep problems, of course. They say that exercise and fresh air and sunshine make you sleep better. Sure enough, I've always found that to be true, and a day, or even just a few hours, outdoors makes me sleep like a baby. Good nutrition and especially not having a heavy dinner helps too. And we all know that caffeine at dinner can interfere with sleep. But did you know that tea, cola beverages, chocolate, and some headache remediescontain caffeine or similar-acting substances? And that as you get older it takes longer for your body to clear caffeine from your system? I used to be able to drink coffee with dinner without a problem, but these days I may notice its effect at night if I have it much after mid-morning. Tobacco is also a stimulant and can interfere with sleep.

Experts talk about "sleep hygiene," and make recommendations to improve sleep such as staying active, keeping your bedroom cool and dark, not using your bedroom for TV watching or other activities, and so on. I admit I violate many of these. I usually fall asleep listening to the radio and I frequently read or watch video on my tablet after I go to bed. Also, what if you live in a one-room apartment, as many seniors do? I suspect many of these factors affect more your ability to fall asleep rather than stay asleep. I've been blessed, as I said, with an ability to fall asleep quickly after I first go to bed, so I don't worry too much about these.

What about the naps I've been taking? Apparently naps remain a hotly debated subject among sleep experts. Some sources say that although many seniors avoid napping because they fear being thought lazy, naps can help some people get the amount of sleep they require and have the energy needed to stay active. Others believe that napping should be avoided, or at least limited to no more than 30 minutes in the early afternoon, because it tends to interfere with nighttime sleep. A 2001 paper in the journal Sleep reported study findings showing that about a quarter of healthy seniors do take daytime naps. The effects of napping turned out to be not very significant. Napping tended to cut down a bit on the early-evening sleepiness that many of us hate, and it sometimes increased the total amount of sleep subjects got. It also increased incidence of early waking, but only by a little. Naps were not found to cause sleep rhythm disruptions. Another study of napping in the elderly, reported in 2011 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found no significant effects on nighttime sleep quality or duration resulting from either 45-minute or 2-hour naps. Interestingly, they did find that napping was associated with improved cognitive function. Now there's a plus!

So I think I will continue to lie down for a bit of rest and reading after lunch, when I'm home, and I won't worry if I fall asleep. I think it makes me feel a bit better, so long as I don't nap too long. That seems to be the key here. Go ahead and nap if it makes you feel better. Don't avoid naps out of some sense that they make you seem lazy or that they will mess up your evening sleep pattern in any significant way. And hey... we can all use some of that enhanced cognitive function, right?

What about sleeping pills? Doctors will sometimes prescribe medications to help improve sleep, but according to a Science Daily article, research has shown such medications may not be advisable for seniors because they lead to an increase in the incidence of falls in older people. I guess they make you groggy, so that when you get out of bed you are more likely to lose balance or trip and fall.

My reading indicated that there can be many other, more serious,  causes of sleep problems, including sleep apnea, acid reflux, depression, anxiety, pain from arthritis, medications, and a whole host of other medical issues. The need to urinate frequently also disrupts some people's sleep. Web MD suggests that you check with your doctor if you are consistently experiencing insomnia or feeling very tired. That's definitely good advice, but for many of us, the changes we experience in our sleep patterns as we get older are actually pretty normal.