Health Beat: Sleep Changes with Age, and What Can Help
By Mark McNease
Another night, another wake up at 3:00 am. It doesn’t matter that we’re in California and it’s three hours ealier – the routine is the same. Having talked about this to many people my age, it seems like it’s just part of the changing sleep patterns that come with getting older. I’ve gotten use to it, but on those rare occasions when I wake up at 5:00 am, or even 4:30, it feels like I’ve slept late.
If you’ve experienced this same phenomenon you’re not imagining things, and you’re definitely not alone. As we get older, sleep often changes in frustrating ways. Falling asleep takes longer for many people, although that’s never a problem for me. I often drift off halfway through a TV show at 8:30 p.m., maybe 9:00 p.m., and consider it a win if I get six hours of sleep. Then I wake up at 3 a.m. for no clear reason and lie there thinking about an acceptable time to get out of bed. Being in bed awake in the middle of the night doesn’t work for me: I explain it as feeling the way I imagine a turtle on its back feels. I just want to get up. Nothing is quite as disturbing to my fragile peace of mind as imagining terrible things in the dark while I’m stranded on my back.
One of the most important things to understand is that sleep changes with age are normal, but chronic exhaustion, if that’s a result, is not something we have to accept. Our bodies produce less melatonin as we age, and our internal clocks tend to shift earlier. That means lighter sleep, more awakenings, and earlier mornings. Add in medications, aches and pains, hot flashes, anxiety, or sleep apnea, and it’s no wonder rest can feel elusive. (I’ve been using a CPAP machine for seven years, and it’s not weight-related, which many people assume.)
What often doesn’t help is trying to force sleep. Lying in bed willing yourself to drift off usually backfires, increasing stress and making sleep even harder to come by. Similarly, relying too heavily on sleep medications can create dependency, grogginess, or disrupted sleep cycles, especially over time. I don’t like taking anything to sleep, and only occasionally use something prescribed for me. Anything that can make me groggy is a no-go.
What does help is consistency. Going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day helps reset your internal clock. But does that mean I’ve conditioned myself to consistently fall asleep at 9:00 and wake up at 3:00? It sounds probable, as much as I don’t like it. The mind assumes things, like sleep patterns, and it becomes hard to recondition ourselves.
Light exposure also plays a bigger role than many people realize. Bright light in the morning helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle, while too much light at night, especially from screens, can interfere with falling asleep. Here I have to say guilty as charged: we sleep with the TV on all night. That, too, becomes a kind of addition, and now if the TV turns itself off, as it sometimes does, I’ll wake up to the dark and the silence and have to turn it back on.
Another often-overlooked factor is how we use our beds. If your bed has become a place for watching TV, scrolling on your phone, worrying, or replaying conversations in your head, your brain may no longer associate it with sleep. One good habit I have is that my phone stays in the kitchen once we’ve had dinner. The bedroom is off limits.
It’s worth saying this clearly: if sleep problems are persistent, worsening, or affecting your mood and health, they deserve medical attention. Sleep apnea, restless legs, depression, anxiety, and medication side effects are all treatable, but they’re often missed because people assume poor sleep is “just part of getting older.”
Better sleep may not look exactly like it did at 30, but it can get better than it is now. I’m also in the habit of taking 90 minute naps almost every day. I suspect this is part of the cycle, since I know I’m going to catch up on my sleep in the afternoon. But I prefer the wonderful feeling of a good night’s rest and a beside clock that tells me I’ve slept in.