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A recent survey of more than 150,000 randomly selected adults suggests that apart from a dip during the 40s, the quality of sleep, like wine gets better with age. Apparently it's the 80 year olds who sleep like babies. One of the researchers said that while ailments and stress do play a part, the notion that older people are light sleepers is completely wrong. Now universities are equipped to measure sleep duration and disturbance but it hardly matches the volunteer's own opinion of their sleep patterns.
The research, conducted by the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania, instead focused on asking random people about their sleeping patterns. They were also asked about their race, income, education, mood and general health. While being depressed or having health problems was linked to poor sleep quality, once the researchers had adjusted the results to compensate for this, a distinct pattern emerged. Instead, they found that complaints about poor sleep quality fell as age rose, with the lowest number of complaints coming from the over-70s.
The only exception to the "older people sleep better" rule, were people in their 40s. Dr Michael Grandner said the original reason for setting up the study was to confirm the precise opposite - that sleep quality declined in old age. "These results force us to re-think what we know about sleep in older people - men and women," the BBC quoted him as saying.
Dr Grandner suggested that it was possible that older people were sleeping worse, but simply felt better about it. "Even if sleep among older Americans is actually worse than in younger adults, feelings about it still improve with age," he added. Professor Derk-Jan Dijk, Professor of Sleep and Physiology and Director of the Surrey Sleep Research Centre, said the study was "interesting".
He said: "We have got to get away from all these myths about ageing - many people are very content with their sleep." However, he said that asking people for their subjective opinion about sleep patterns could produce answers that were dependent on their mood at the time. "If you are angry because your boss didn''t give you a pay rise, your perception of sleep quality may be very different from someone who is feeling generally content," he added.