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| Seniors and Insomnia | During all these years of rising early to work nearly everyone looks forward to retirement. This is considered to be the golden time, when that constantly annoying alarm clock would be tossed out. However, as this period of time begins, most people find that even though they would like to sleep late, they are still rising with the first sun shines. In addition, the sleep they manage to get overnight is not as restful, as it should be.
Having difficulty with falling asleep as well as with staying asleep is common for nearly everyone as he or she gets older. Therefore, it does not mean at all that insomnia is something which is not possible to avoid. To do this one should simply try to explore what can be the possible reason of his or her sleeping problems. And as soon as this reason is found, there is a lot of ways out of this sleepless situation.
As people become older, their bodies secrete smaller and smaller amounts of key substances, which help their body decide when they should sleep and whey they are to wake up. In addition, as people age, their level of growth hormone, which promote deep sleep, as well as the level of melatonin, a hormone, which regulates the sleeping and waking cycles, get decreased. The result is the change of the person’s circadian rhythm – the internal clock, which tells everyone to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. An elderly people may find themselves going to bed earlier and waking up earlier.
It should also be pointed out, that as people get older, they may find as well that getting a good night’s sleep becomes more and more difficult. They may find that they:
Have somewhat harder time staying asleep;
Their sleep becomes lighter, than it used to be;
They wake up three, four, or even more times every night.
Anyway, despite all the frustrating disturbances, every senior person still really needs to have the same amount of sleep that he or she needed in the young age. And this is about seven or eight hours a night. But because now there is a tendency that this person is likely to wake up more often during one night, and the sleep is not as sound as it used to be, the senior people may need to spend more time in bed at night. However, it is also possible to have one or even two napes during a daytime in order to get these eight quality hours of sleep.
In case if these age – related changes occur on their own, they usually do not mean any sleep disorder. There are several factors, which may become the reason of the senior age insomnia. Here are the most widespread causes of insomnia in older adults.
Health Conditions that may contribute to Insomnia
As every one of us becomes older, he or she is more likely to develop some health problems, which can become the reason of insomnia. To these problems may be referred the following health conditions:
• Alzheimer’s disease;
• Asthma;
• Arthritis;
• Cancer;
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD);
• Diabetes;
• Enlarged prostate;
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD);
• Heartburn;
• Heart disease;
• High blood pressure;
• Incontinence;
• Osteoporosis;
• Parkinson’s disease;
• Stroke.
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