Most people, including the elderly, think that they need less sleep as they get older. The myth is perpetuated by the fact that the elderly find it more difficult to get a good night’s rest. They are plagued by medical problems, the medications prescribed to treat them, and circadian rhythm issues; all of which interfere with a quality rest. The data seems to suggest that elderly people get an intermediate of a half an hour to an hour less sleep per night than teenagers and young adults. The sleep is likewise more fragmented with more ordinary awakenings and less deep sleep. The selective information is also supported by discussions with the elderly who are much more apt to complain with regards to their aches, their pains, and their sleeping patterns. Accepting the selective information is one thing, but accepting the myth that older humans need less sleep will lead numerous down a dangerous path.

Study after study has supported the fact that memory consolidation, memory reconsolidation, and cognitive functions are heightened by sleep. Robert Stickgold and Matthew Walker have studied and written spacious on the importance of sleep to memory consolidation and reconsolidation. It is their conclusion that “the speedily growing body of proof proposes that numerous of these processes are optimally engaged for the duration of sleep.” Sleep is just as primary for the elderly as it is for the young. The processes carry on as long as we live.

Professor Sean Drummond, a psychologist at the University of California, speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said, “Older adults gain from getting as much sleep as they got when they were in their thirties. The quality of our sleep declines with age but it’s important to maintain the quantity. The brain’s functions are at stake. His tests on adults over 68 have shown that seven to eight hours of sleep are necessary for optimal performance. Less than six hours will negatively affect performance and memory.

The more fractured sleep of the elderly requires a more diligent attention to obtaining the commended seven to eight hours. Naps in the early afternoon are a good way to add a lot of extra time to the log book. Early afternoon is better than late so that it doesn’t interfere with the time it takes to fall asleep at night. The nap will have to be 90 minutes to 120 minutes for a deep sleep, originative nap. A shorter 30 minute nap will provide a performance “pick me up.” Both will add gains to the mind and heart.

Kate Devlin, a Medical Correspondent for the UK’s Telegraph, reported on a recent study done in China, which has the biggest population of elderly people in the world. The researchers found that when the 2,800 humans aged 100 or older were asked how some hours a day they slept, their intermediate response was seven and a half hours. Even more noteworthy was the finding that they were almost three times more likely to sleep ten hours a day than the younger groups tested. A recent study in Britain showed that the quickest growing segment of the world population is the “oldest old,” or those that are over 80 years old. In Britain that segment will increase by a third in the year 2020. It is evident that the majority of this segment of the population is healthful and there may be a link among the “quality of their sleep and the probabilities of living to an old age.”

Hopefully the myth of older persons requiring less sleep will catch you napping in the future. Make the venture to obtain your optimal seven to eight hours. Sleep, memory, cognition, and longevity may be your link to the “Fountain of Youth.”

Neuroscience Sleep Robert Stickgold Picture

Neuroscience Sleep Robert Stickgold Image

Neuroscience Sleep Robert Stickgold Photo

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Most helpful client reviews

1 of 1 persons found the following review helpful.
Great review of a much mis-understood subject
By Flicker
I just wish I had more time to plow through the book in a real study of the selective information because it is splendid so far. Grading it by the scale of underlinings in the book it would be a 95%. This is a profession that is in it is infancy. It is evenly an aspect of living that is so undervalued by dunderheads that think sleep is un-necissary. Hopefully the world will no longer listen persons in the medical profession say that “patients are not here to sleep, but to get better”. This book also uses examples of other species sleep which of course helps to be grateful for sleep in an evolutionary model and the ubiquity of sleep to those who have not been educated as wholly in that direction.

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“How long will it take for me to feel better?”

As a clinical therapist, I listen that question frequently. It’s a reasonable question. I surely comprehend that when somebody is deeply hurting and engaged in a struggle in their life, they want to feel better as speedily as possible.

However, the clinical treatment for an individual with DID / MPD is long term. Some exploration has said that the treatment may be finished within two or three years, but in my clinical experience, that is far from the truth.

Dissociative Identity Disorder is a result of long-term, chronic, severe, sadistic child abuse. As children, these survivors witnessed and experienced a myriad of heinous crimes. They distinctively describe repeated consuming abuse by multiple perpetrators, and then were other than as supposed or expected in an emotional manner neglected, starving for comfort, consolation, or attention. They were left alone, even while very young, to routine and integrate their pain by themselves. For these children, the splitting routine became their way of coping with aroused intensity, conflicts, huge distress, and intense pain that were other than as supposed or expected far too difficult to manage on their own. They blocked off their pain, locked it away from themselves, and left it there. Sitting, waiting, piling up for years.

When you understand how much pain and abuse has occurred in order to fabricate the dissociative splits in the introductory place, it is no wonder that the healing procedure is also so very long. All areas of dissociative survivors’ lives are touched and profoundly changed or affected by the abuse. It merely takes a very long time to address everything properly.

Some of the treatment issues are:

• Stabilization of the person– both internally and externally
• Managing and eliminating self-injury and self-harm issues
• Examining and obtaining current-day external safety from abuse
• Internal scheme safety
• Developing effective internal communication
• Calming internal noise and chaos
• Working specifically with child parts
• Working quintessentially with adult parts
• Working quintessentially with teenage parts
• Learning when it comes to the other system parts
• Working with internal perpetrator introjects
• Creating aroused separation from external perpetrators
• Working with triggers
• Correcting cognitive distortions
• Addressing gender confusion, male vs. female issues
• Processing emotions
• Body effigy issues
• Reducing time loss, memory loss, amnesia
• Time confusion, time distortion
• Trauma processing and memory work
• Body memories and kinesthetic issues
• Understanding re-enactments and trauma bonds
• Healing sexual abuse issues
• Healing physical abuse issues
• Healing aroused abuse issues
• Healing ritualized abuse issues
• Healing exploitation, pornography, prostitution, sex slavery issues
• Managing family, marital, parenting issues
• Addressing addictions
• Managing eating disorders
• Household management issues– bettering every day functioning
• Relationship issues and instructing social skills
• Understanding the effects of trauma on the brain
• Improving self-independence and self-reliance
• Improving self respect issues
• Leaving disability and regaining employment
• Depression and medication management
• Bipolar disorder and medication management
• Anxiety / Panic and medication management
• Post-traumatic stress issues (PTSD)
• Reducing phobias
• Social anxiety and social isolation
• Safely eliminating suicidal ideation and suicidal behaviors
• Homicidal ideation and anger management
• Exploring spiritual confusion
• Philosophical issues
• Detachment and separation issues
• Treating sleep disorders
• Treating medical complicatednesses and physical hurt resulting from the abuse
• Reaching integration, blended states, or effective system team work

That’s a tremendous amount of work. And most of these issues surface again and again and again, calling for in-depth attention on a regular basis for years of time. Emotional healing on such a wide scale just does not occur fast. Forcing the issues or pretending to be “done” sooner than realistically possible is not helpful.

Simply put, years of severe injuries will require years of intense healing.

It takes as long as it takes.

Outlines Genders Issues Better Disorders Picture

Outlines Genders Issues Better Disorders Image

Outlines Genders Issues Better Disorders Photo