Getting older means you sleep better, not worse, study shows

Older people often complain about sleeping poorly as a sign of aging. Turns out that sleep improves during an adult’s lifetime. A new study in the March edition of SLEEP analyzed 150,000 responses to questions about sleep issues. The adults with the least complaints about sleep disturbances and daytime tiredness were in their 80s. Sleep complaints in general declined over the years, with a slight uptick in middle age.

Researchers said the results challenge conventional beliefs. They said physicians tend to ignore sleep complaints among older adults as a normal part of aging. Granted, there are contributing factors like illness and depression that affect slumber. But those things aside, older folks should be feeling good about their sleep, the study said. If not, they need to talk to their doctor.

Read more blog posts about sleep issues with older adults. Or learn more about sleep and growing older.

Chemo patients need more sleep, but quality doesn’t change

Women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer seem to require more sleep during treatments, a new study reports. However, the quality of their sleep stays the same during the procedures. Researchers said most women preparing to undergo chemotherapy already may be sleeping poorly.

The authors of the study observed 97 women with newly diagnosed stage I-III breast cancer. Sleep and fatigue were measured seven different times during three weeks of cycle 1 and cycle 4 chemotherapy. The patients slept longer in the night and napped more by day during the cancer treatment. Researchers suggested additional sleep is needed to cope with fatigue and other side effects of chemotherapy.

The women's quality of sleep did not change during chemo treatments. Researchers said it was likely that the women already experienced poor sleep before their diagnosis, and that the cancer could be causing sleep disturbances. The study appeared in the February edition of the journal SLEEP.

Read more about insomnia due to medical condition and about sleep disorders in women. More blogs about sleep issues particular to women also are available.

Image by Aglie

Loneliness Could Be Disrupting Your Sleep

How lonely you are may affect how well you sleep. A study in the November issue of the journal SLEEP looked at 95 adults living in rural South Dakota. The volunteers were asked about any loneliness, such as feeling left out or isolated from others. These same residents also had their sleep cycles measured. When researchers compared the two, they found that the lonelier a resident felt, the more they woke up during the night.

Why is this important? Data show that loneliness has a negative effect on health. Things like high blood pressure, depression and the risk for dying early have been linked to loneliness. Researchers wanted to see if one of the causes was a poor night’s sleep. Sleep is key in helping the body heal itself and stay healthy. Poor quality sleep has been associated with various negative effects on the body, including declines in physical and mental health.

The study results show that all the participants slept for the same amount of time every night. What differed was the quality of sleep. Those feeling lonely had sleep that was broken-up during the night. The greater their feelings of loneliness, the greater the disruption to their sleep.

The results of the South Dakota study are similar to a 2002 study comparing the loneliness of college students to their quality of sleep. The studies suggest that loneliness can disrupt the sleep of anyone, from college kids at a major university to adults living in a rural community. The challenge is finding a way to feel secure in your individual social group.

All types of traffic noise likely to disturb sleep, harm morning work performance

Buyers beware: living in a home near the airport, a busy road or train tracks will likely translate to a lot of groggy mornings at the office. An abstract presented Tuesday at SLEEP 2010 in San Antonio exposes the tolls of sleeping in an environment with a lot of nighttime noise.

The study found subjects exposed to recorded traffic noise while sleeping reacted slower during a psychomotor vigilance task the next morning. Reaction times tended to slow when the researchers increased the frequency or volume of the noise.

The sound of passing trains most often caused subjects to wake, followed by auto traffic and airplane noise. Each type of noise caused about the same level of impairment the following morning. Combining the three kinds of noise did not lead to worse symptoms.

The lead author of the study said the risk of being awoken by nighttime noise is highest among those who are susceptible to sleep disturbances, including children, shift workers, the elderly and those with chronic medical conditions.

72 study subjects slept in a laboratory as recorded traffic noises from airplanes, cars and trains played for 11 consecutive nights. Sleeping participants heard 40 to 120 sounds in any combination or volume per night. After waking up the subjects completed a psychomotor vigilance task, memory search task and unstable tracking task to measure neurobehavioral performance.

Traffic noises are one of the many causes of the form of insomnia called “environmental sleep disorder.” A common solution is drowning out the traffic sounds with white noise, produced by a fan or sound machine.

Alcoholism Has Long-Term Effects on Sleep

A study published today in the journal Sleep shows that alcoholics may continue to have sleep problems long after they quit drinking.

The study involved 42 alcoholics with a mean age of 49 years. They had been sober for varying periods of time. Some had abstained from drinking for a few weeks; others had not had a drink in almost two years. Their sleep was compared with 42 controls.

Results show that the percentage of deep, slow wave sleep was lower in alcoholics than in controls. Alcoholics also had more light, stage 1 non-rapid eye movement sleep.

The authors report that these results are reflective of poorer sleep quality. They also suggest that these sleep problems could play a role in alcoholics’ cognitive decline.

The study also found that estimated lifetime alcohol consumption was related to subjective sleep quality; higher lifetime consumption predicted less sleep satisfaction.

Men estimated that they had consumed almost twice as much alcohol as women. But the pattern of alcoholism-related sleep changes was similar in both male and female participants.

The authors report that long-term alcohol abuse causes structural damage to the brain. Sleep measures may reflect these changes in brain structure.

The NIAAA reports that heavy drinking increases your risk of sleep disorders; it also puts you at risk for liver disease, heart disease, depression, stroke and several types of cancer.

In August the Sleep Education Blog reported that drinking alcohol has a negative effect on sleep; decades of research shows that alcohol disrupts your natural sleep cycle.

Insomnia due to drug or substance can result from alcohol use or withdrawal.

Work & Sleep: A Hard Day’s Night

A new study shows that your job may be affecting how you sleep.

The Dutch study involved 1,163 employees. Sleep quality and fatigue were measured across a one-year time lag.

Results show that exposure to a high-strain work environment was associated with elevated levels of sleep complaints. In contrast, people with a low-strain job had the highest sleep quality; they also had the lowest level of fatigue.

The study supports the Demand/Control Model proposed by Karasek and Theorell. This model suggests that high-strain jobs can have a negative effect on both mental and physical health; job strain can cause fatigue, anxiety, depression and physical illness.

A high-strain job is psychologically demanding. It also restricts your “decision latitude;” this refers to the authority you have to make decisions and use all of your skills.

Last week the Sleep Education Blog reported that workplace bullying increases the risk of disturbed sleep. The study measured 45 forms of bullying such as verbal aggression, criticism, gossiping and threats of physical violence.

In April the Sleep Education Blog reported that female executives may be more prone to sleep problems than male executives. The risk is greatest for women who have isolated, demanding jobs.

How can you prevent job stress from disturbing your sleep? One way is to avoid “bedwork.” Never bring any work to bed with you; instead you should make your bed a refuge from your job.

Get other helpful tips and learn more about job stress and sleep at SleepEducation.com.

Student Athletes Sleep Better than their Inactive Peers

A new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that teenagers who routinely exercise vigorously have higher quality sleep than their peers.

Overall, athletes scored higher in sleep quality and mood and woke fewer times after falling asleep. They also had better daytime concentration and less fatigue. Athletes also scored lower for anxiety and depressive symptoms.

The study, conducted in Switzerland, included 434 adolescents with an average age of 17. Of the total participants, 258 took part in Swiss Olympic classes, which provide intense levels of training for high school students. They averaged about 18 hours of exercise per week. The other participants, recruited from Swiss high schools, averaged about five hours of exercise per week.

Students kept a log for seven days, tracking how much they exercised, how much sleep they got, the quality of that sleep, how tired they felt during the day, how well they were able to concentrate, and how tired they were at bedtime.

Findings suggest that consistent exercising is positively related to adolescents' sleep and psychological functioning. Results also indicate that males with low exercise levels are at risk for increased sleep complaints and poorer psychological functioning.

In July the Sleep Education Blog reported on a smaller study; it also found that regular exercise can lead to multiple improvements in the sleep of teens.

Sleep & Marriage

A study that was presented last week at SLEEP 2009 in Seattle, Wash., examined the effect of marriage on sleep.

The study involved 360 middle-aged women with an average age of 51 years. They reported their relationship status at annual visits. Their sleep also was monitored for three nights.

Results show that women who were stably married had better subjective and objective sleep than unmarried women. Women who lost a partner during the eight-year follow-up period had the worst sleep.

The sleep of women who gained a partner during the study was similar to that of women in stable marriages. But study author Wendy Troxel, PhD, told the AASM that newlyweds were more restless.

“We discovered that these women had more restless sleep than the always married women,” said Troxel. “We speculate that these findings may reflect a ‘newlywed effect.’ These women may be less adjusted to sleeping with their partner than the ‘stably married’ women.”

Earlier in 2009 Troxel published a study linking sleep to marital happiness. Results show that happily married women reported fewer sleep disturbances.

Sleep for a More Satisfying Life

Are you satisfied with your life? If not, how’s your sleep? A new study shows there may be a connection.

Life satisfaction and sleep quality are known to be important factors in your overall health and well-being. But how are they related?

Does poor sleep cause you to be less satisfied with your life? Or does low satisfaction with your life lead to sleep problems?

The researchers sought to find an answer. Their study involved 18,631 same-sex twins in Finland.

They measured life satisfaction, sleep quality and other factors. Then they did a follow-up six years later and recorded the same measures.

What did they find? People who became dissatisfied with their life during the six years between study points were more likely to have had sleep problems. Fifty-nine percent of these newly dissatisfied people had reported at the beginning of the study that they sleep poorly.

The results also show that poor sleep predicted a consistent pattern of life dissatisfaction. But the reverse wasn’t true; life dissatisfaction did not consistently predict poor sleep.

Studying twins also provided a genetic look at the connection. The study shows that both sleep quality and life satisfaction have a strong genetic component; there was substantial heritability for both traits.

But the genetic influence is different; the genetic component shared by sleep quality and life satisfaction was relatively weak.

The study supports the idea that poor sleep may have direct effects on the brain, emotions and mood.

So how is the quality of your sleep? You can get a better idea by completing this brief sleep evaluation.

Get help for a sleep problem at an AASM-accredited sleep disorders center.