It is a common knowledge that as we advance in years, sleep will become harder to achieve. Actually, sleeping difficulties in seniors are not entirely due to aging. There are many contributing factors in seniors’ lives which eventually lead to lack of sleep or worse, sleeping disorders.
We seniors, just like any other adults, young and old, need to sleep at least 7 hours every night in order to allow our body to recharge itself of spent energy during the day. Unfortunately, no matter how tired our bodies have become before going to bed, we still experience disturbed sleeping patterns and most of the time, we find ourselves waking several times during the night for one reason or another.
Naturally, as we grow older, some organs in our body begin to slow down. This is the body’s natural process. Usually, the first to go chaotic is our hormones and sadly, our sleep is largely dependent on sleep hormone, melatonin. Melatonin is secreted by the pineal gland and it signals the body when it’s time to sleep. Its main role is to notify your brain that it is indeed time to sleep and in effect, the body responds by making you drowsy and certainly, you will fall asleep.
Sleep can prevent health problems while improving your ability to concentrate and perform tasks during the day. It stabilizes the way you think and how you cope when faced with problems, both emotional and trivial. Without it, expect your body to break down anytime since it cannot take anymore of nature’s harassment. A senior who lacks sleep is most likely has mood swings, depression, memory lapses, drowsiness during the day and elusive sleep during the night. Often, sleeping problems lead to poor quality of life for seniors.
Health care providers also blame seniors’ erratic sleeping patterns for incidents of falling, hip fractures, injuries and sometimes, death among them. These unfortunate events happen during the night, when seniors wake up to use the bathroom. There is always an increase risk of slipping and falling along the way.
However, there are ways to prevent accidents from happening. Here’s some tips that you can apply during the night:
1. Declutter the way to and fro the bathroom to prevent trips, slips and fall.
2. As much as possible, sleep in a room next to the bathroom, or at least on the same floor so you won’t need the stairs going and coming back.
3. Install rubberized floor matting in the bathroom.
4. Avoid drinking too much water prior to sleeping. The same goes for diuretics such as tea and coffee. Plus, remember, caffeine makes you alert and awake so avoid them at all cost.
For sleeping difficulties, here are some points to remember:
1. Avoid alcohol. It will only make you drowsy but will not provide you a restful sleep.
2. Avoid smoking since smoking causes insomnia, it’s most common side effect.
3. Try to make your room a conducive place to sleep. Take out all the things that will likely prevent you from falling asleep like your TV.
It is important to check your medications since these things are known to bring about sleep disturbances. Consult your doctor if you suspect your medication to cause sleeping problems and ask him to change it for you.
