Do you have sleepless nights? Google “how can a senior get a good night’s sleep” and you’ll see thousands of articles listing advice. The culprits, experts say, are bad late-night activities: too much water, drinking caffeinated beverages or alcohol, napping, late-night snacks, blue light time (e.g., TV and eBooks), and circadian rhythms in seniors. (1)
I think these experts must be 30 years old. They seem to ignore what I think most seniors think is obvious reasons we can’t sleep all night: aches and pains. Many of our older bodies have joints, stomachs, and intestines that have seen their better days. I toss and turn and wake up because my hips hurt. I get heartburn. Hubby suffers with back and tummy issues. The list goes on.
It’s time we seniors stood up and debunked the advice of these youthful experts
Take fluid consumption. I’m not one to track anything, but it seems how much I drink at night has no relationship to how many times I get up in the middle of the night. I’ve conducted a non-scientific investigation into my sleeplessness. Which comes first the pee or the pain? After several minutes of bedsheet aerobics, I decide “well I might as well go to the bathroom.” I’ve concluded the nighttime drinks might not be the culprit.
My friend dispels the water theory, too. She eliminated liquids after 6 PM hoping to get a pee-less sleep. It didn’t work. She still had to pee in the middle of the night. She went back to drinking water in the evening whenever she wanted.
Besides, other experts say, “Drink up. Older adults are at a greater risk for dehydration because of how body composition changes with age. Those in the 65-and-older crowd simply have less water in their bodies than younger adults or children.” (2) And that leads to confusion and crankiness. So that’s why I’m confused and cranky. We seniors can’t win. We get confused and cranky if we don’t get enough water but if we get enough water we are confused and cranky because we didn’t sleep.
But getting back the 30-year-old’s advice to seniors, they blame late-night blue light exposure. You get blue light from TV, computers, tablets and many LED lights. In other words, your house is filled with blue light. The only way to avoid it is to turn off the TV and sit in the dark for an hour before you go to bed. That would put you to sleep for sure. But I bet you’d still wake up in the middle of the night.
I've considered blue light blocker glasses, but that would just be more paraphernalia I'd need for my bedtime routine (see Bedtime: A Whole New Meaning for Seniors) and I'm afraid they'd poke me in the eye when I fell asleep.
We like to watch a comedy show before we go to bed. It puts us in a happy mood after the distressing news and helps us unwind after the horror movie we just watched (just kidding).
Besides, I wonder about the blue light exposure thing. Every night I play games on my iPad (blue light) while watching TV (blue light). And I’ve read my eBook (blue light) in bed for years, sometimes up to 45 minutes before falling asleep. What baffles me is why I sleep like a sloth on some nights and flop like a fish out of water on others. If blue light was the culprit, I think all of my nights would be sleepless.
One article suggests that circadian rhythms change as we get older and that seniors should consider going to bed at 7 and getting up at 3 or 4. (3) Fat chance. I’d miss all the good TV shows and what would I do at three in the morning? Oh, I forgot, I’m up then anyway. And I’d read my blue light eBook. Catch-22.
I’ve found drugs help. For a while, I took ZzzQuill™, but I’ve read that sedatives are bad for brain functioning and at this age, I don’t need anything that makes my brain worse. (4)
But my pesky hip was acting like a 2-year-old that wants your attention, so I went on a scavenger hunt through the medicine cabinets. I struck gold with some Tramadol relics, expired in the last millennia. But when you're desperate, you don't check expiration dates, right? I got 10 nights of wonderful sleep and 10 days of not being cranky and crabby.
So here’s some more non-scientific evidence why I’m skeptical of those "how to get a good night’s sleep" articles. Friday I did everything wrong. I treated myself to a caffeinated cappuccino. I had a glass of wine. I refilled my 32 ounce glass of water and sipped away during the evening. I also drank a few ounces of caffeinated coke when I a handful of goldfish at 10 PM. Worse yet, I slept for an hour when watching an action movie on TV. My hip pain was level 4. It had been level two the past few days. As I crawled in bed I thought, “oh, this is going to be a bad night, but I have a new book, so I’ll just read if I don’t sleep.” Turned out, it was a one pee night and I was back to sleep in 15 minutes after returning to bed.
On Saturday I didn’t nap, didn’t eat or watch TV before bed and only read my eBook for 10 minutes. It was a three-pee night and I has trouble getting back to sleep each time.
So my advice to all those 30-year-old sleep experts. Get old, then see if you give the same advice.
References
Kara Gavin, 8 Tips to Help Older People Fall — and Stay — Asleep, October 11, 2017
Dehydration, Cleveland Clinic
Danielle Pacheco, Dr. Anes Rehman, How Age Affects Your Circadian Rhythm, clevlandclinic.com
Sedative, clevlandclinic.com
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