When Your Sleep Changes With Age

You used to sleep through. Now you are awake at half past four, properly awake, and the night feels broken. Or you drop off at nine in front of the television and then cannot settle at eleven.

Nothing has gone wrong. Sleep changes shape as people get older, and knowing what is normal here saves a great deal of unnecessary worry.

What actually changes

Several things, all at once, which is why it feels like more than it is.

Sleep gets lighter. The deep stretch at the start of the night shortens, so noises, a full bladder or a warm room wake you where once they would not have.

The timing shifts earlier. Many people get sleepy earlier in the evening and wake earlier in the morning, and that shift is a real change in the internal clock rather than a habit.

Waking in the night becomes normal. Brief wakings happen at every age and you start noticing them, and remembering them, more.

And the total need barely changes. Most older adults still need roughly what they always did, but it arrives in a more broken form and often with a nap in it.

Stop counting the hours

A great deal of the distress here is arithmetic rather than tiredness.

People wake at four, calculate that they have had five hours, conclude the day is ruined, and then lie there in a state that guarantees no more sleep.

So take the clock out of the bedroom, or turn it away. If you wake, the only question worth asking is whether you feel sleepy, not what time it is.

And judge your sleep by the day rather than the night. If you get through the afternoon without a struggle, your sleep is doing its job whatever shape it came in.

Work with the earlier clock rather than against it

If your body now wants to sleep at nine and wake at four, you can shift that a little, and fighting it entirely tends to fail.

The lever is light. Get bright light in the late afternoon and early evening, outdoors if possible, which nudges the clock later. Keep the evening lit rather than dim until bedtime.

Avoid the evening doze in the chair, which is what steals the sleepiness you need at eleven. If you cannot stay awake in front of the television, go to bed, or do something upright instead.

In the morning, if you are waking very early, go easy on bright light in the first hour, which is the opposite of the usual advice and the right version for this problem.

Make the night less interruptible

Since sleep is lighter now, the small things matter more than they used to.

Cool room, dark room, earplugs or steady sound. Less fluid in the last two hours, and a trip to the bathroom right before bed. A clear path to the bathroom with a dim light, because a bright one wakes you fully.

Look at what you take. Some blood pressure drugs, diuretics, steroids and antidepressants disturb sleep or send you to the bathroom at night, and the timing of a dose can often be changed. That is a conversation with your doctor rather than something to put up with.

Alcohol gets worse with age as a sleep aid, not better. It still puts you under and it breaks the second half of the night more than it used to.

Use the wakeful hour rather than lying in it

If you are awake and not sleepy, get up. Lying there awake teaches your body that bed is a place for being awake, which is the main thing that turns a change into insomnia.

So go and sit somewhere else, in low light, with something dull. Go back when you feel heavy. People who do this consistently find the wakings get shorter.

And if you are reliably up at five, consider making it a good hour rather than a bad one. Plenty of people find it the best, quietest part of their day once they stop resenting it.

Know what is not just age

Age explains lighter and earlier. It does not explain everything, and these are worth a doctor rather than acceptance.

Loud snoring, gasping, or being told you stop breathing. Falling asleep in the daytime without meaning to. Legs that crawl or ache and must be moved. Acting out dreams, shouting or thrashing. Pain that wakes you. Needing the bathroom many times a night.

And low mood, which both disturbs sleep and gets blamed on it. Early-morning waking with a flat, heavy feeling is a different thing from a shifted clock.

When to get help

Please see your doctor if you snore heavily or wake gasping, if you fall asleep in the daytime without meaning to, if your legs will not let you settle, or if you act out your dreams, because each of those is a specific and treatable condition rather than part of getting older. Ask about your medications and their timing, which is one of the most common fixable causes. If you have lain awake for months, ask specifically about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which works better than sleeping pills and lasts longer, and is suitable at any age. And tell your doctor if your mood has been low alongside it, since the two are tangled and treating one helps the other.