monument to Rip Van Winkle
(based on a story by Washington Irving)
In the military, I learned to force sleep, and it’s a trait that has been helpful to me ever since. Thus if I were to tell you that I’m going to shut down for an hour or so, you’d see me sound asleep in a minute or less. There is a type of Zen to the process. You can train yourself to do that, but most people don’t want to put in the effort.  As I’ve aged, my friends have aged along with me (so unfair that I’m aging too) and often complain about sleep problems. I ran onto this article in Neuron and thought to share it. 
Just because you’re getting longer in the tooth doesn’t mean that sleep is less important – as the article points out.
As people grow old, their nights are frequently plagued by bouts of wakefulness, bathroom trips and other nuisances as they lose our ability to generate the deep, restorative slumber we enjoyed in youth.

But does that mean older people just need less sleep?
Not according to UC Berkeley researchers, who argue in an article published April 5 in the journal Neuron that the unmet sleep needs of the elderly elevate their risk of memory loss and a wide range of mental and physical disorders.
“Nearly every disease killing us in later life has a causal link to lack of sleep,” said the article’s senior author, Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience. “We’ve done a good job of extending life span, but a poor job of extending our health span. We now see sleep, and improving sleep, as a new pathway for helping remedy that.” 
Unlike more cosmetic markers of aging, such as wrinkles and gray hair, sleep deterioration has been linked to such conditions as Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and stroke, he said.
Though older people are less likely than younger cohorts to notice and/or report mental fogginess and other symptoms of sleep deprivation, numerous brain studies reveal how poor sleep leaves them cognitively worse off.
Moreover, the shift from deep, consolidated sleep in youth to fitful, dissatisfying sleep can start as early as one’s 30s, paving the way for sleep-related cognitive and physical ailments in middle age.
And, while the pharmaceutical industry is raking in billions by catering to insomniacs, Walker warns that the pills designed to help us doze off are a poor substitute for the natural sleep cycles that the brain needs in order to function well.
“Don’t be fooled into thinking sedation is real sleep. It’s not,” he said.
For their review of sleep research, Walker and fellow researchers Bryce Mander and Joseph Winer cite studies, including some of their own, that show the aging brain has trouble generating the kind of slow brain waves that promote deep curative sleep, as well as the neurochemicals that help us switch stably from sleep to wakefulness.
“The parts of the brain deteriorating earliest are the same regions that give us deep sleep,” said article lead author Mander, a postdoctoral researcher in Walker’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at UC Berkeley.
Aging typically brings on a decline in deep non-rapid eye movement (NREM) or “slow wave sleep,” and the characteristic brain waves associated with it, including both slow waves and faster bursts of brain waves known as “sleep spindles.”
Youthful, healthy slow waves and spindles help transfer memories and information from the hippocampus, which provides the brain’s short-term storage, to the prefrontal cortex, which consolidates the information, acting as the brain’s long-term storage.
“Sadly, both these types of sleep brain waves diminish markedly as we grow old, and we are now discovering that this sleep decline is related to memory decline in later life,” said Winer, a doctoral student in Walker’s lab.
Another deficiency in later life is the inability to regulate neurochemicals that stabilize our sleep and help us transition from sleep to waking states. These neurochemicals include galanin, which promotes sleep, and orexin, which promotes wakefulness. A disruption to the sleep-wake rhythm commonly leaves older adults fatigued during the day but frustratingly restless at night, Mander said.
Of course, not everyone is vulnerable to sleep changes in later life: “Just as some people age more successfully than others, some people sleep better than others as they get older, and that’s another line of research we’ll be exploring,” Mander said.
“The American College of Physicians has acknowledged that sleeping pills should not be the first-line kneejerk response to sleep problems,” Walker said. “Sleeping pills sedate the brain, rather than help it sleep naturally. We must find better treatments for restoring healthy sleep in older adults, and that is now one of our dedicated research missions.”
Also important to consider in changing the culture of sleep is the question of quantity versus quality.
“Previously, the conversation has focused on how many hours you need to sleep,” Mander said. “However, you can sleep for a sufficient number of hours, but not obtain the right quality of sleep. We also need to appreciate the importance of sleep quality.

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28 COMMENTS

  1. Can you expound on your process for forcing deep sleep?

    I cat nap often, just 5-10 minutes and wake refreshed- actually, I am not really asleep, I can hear everything ,it is more like a meditative state of rest.

  2. Meditative sleep isn't really sleep, more like rest. REM sleep is what all of us need.

    I close my eyes, get comfortable, empty my mind, relax my body (forced relax if that makes sense) and give way. You need to practice it. Once you have it down, it's not that tough. I do tend to wake up after four or so hours of sleep and often do some of my best creative work in the night without a ringing telephone in a silent world. Then I'll go back to sleep for another round until it's time to face the day.

  3. That was a very interesting post.

    Winston Churchill, who used to work into the early morning, slept late and took a sound nap. He also drank a pint of champagne every day and lived to be 90.

    I don't believe he had dementia.

  4. The Dallas Light Cavalry (Irregular) needs to imitate Sr. Winston, who was a good cavalry officer in his youth.

  9. Thanks for the process info. Seems much like what I learned to do when my kids were small & I was often up at night with the Cowman. I can fall into a deep sleep, but only for an hour or two.
    Can you clarify "get comfortable".

  12. I spent a year of my life sleeping on a helmet bag stuffed with clothes, A pillow is fine. No pillow is fine. Sleeping is the point.

  13. wolves sleep on average 13 hours per day

    I don't deny that now I'm old, that mid-afternoon nap feels nice.

  14. Everybody has a different perspective of "comfort". I can't say what comfort is to you. For me, it's a place where I can relax. I don't think that I can define it closer. But just for the record, I can sleep in my car, on the floor, etc. etc. To me the key is the process of setting the cares of the moment aside.

  15. I'm not trying to be facetious asking for clarification on get comfortable. I mostly need to be horizontal to get to deep sleep.

  16. I can sleep sitting almost as well, bouncing along in a HUMVEE or in a boat, wherever it's needed. I hate to put it this way, but once you've worked it out in your head, you can turn it on or off even with loud music and other distractions.

  17. Quality sleep… sigh… I want all those naps back that I threw a hissy fit over as a child! 😀

  18. I have had that problem ever since I got into the mid-60's. I enjoyed your article, very informative.

    I had some kind of infection that irritated my spine. For almost a month I couldn't sleep because of the pain, only an hour or so at a time. The sleep deprivation – I thought I was going out of my mind. It then turned into Bell's Palsy but I made a complete recovery. It was an interesting two months…

    I never joke about sleep any more.

  20. How did the massive jolt of steroids that they gave you for the Bell's Palsy impact sleep?

    You really had a tough month or so.

  24. I used to be able to do so, but my brain now has other ideas in mind for me. I'd do almost anything to regain that now almost magical power of real sleep. Instead there's Ambien for nights I absolutely must get even the simulacrum of sleep, or simply endure agonizing sleeplessness until exhaustion and vivid nightmares set in. Vivid good dreams eventually follow, but those nightmares are BAD. Sleep … I wish.

  25. Ambien and Lunesta can have side-effects, cost a lot, and can be addictive. Many people have been hooked on them (and the drugs of past eras like tranquilizers and sedatives) for years, unable to stop without going through far worse withdrawal symptoms.

    I'm sorry for your trouble. Sleep is one of those things that you must have – as you point out – for the sake of sanity.

  28. By time the Bell's kicked in I was finally getting some sleep again. They didn't give me any med's for it except some stuff for my eye's as half my face/tongue was paralyzed and my eye couldn't tear. Scared my RN daughter half to death as she thought it was a stroke. Very, very weird sensation. Took about six weeks to clear up completely.

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