Younger kids who still go to kindergardens, often ask their grandparents funny questions such as "Why does grandpa/ grandma wake up early in the morning like I do?", most especially during the period of dawn, moments where these kids are preparing themselves for another fun and thrilling day of schooling. No doubt, we can see many older adults tend to wake up very early in the morning. As a response to these kids, their grandparents will always tell them that when people grow older, they tend to sleep lesser. But is it true that it is normal for older adults to wake up early, ie: sleep less as they grow older? Let us refer to some postulations and reasonings below.
According to a very recent study, researchers found out that older adults still sleep averagely for a time length of 6 hours, just like what younger adults do everyday. The reasons keeping these older adults out from a good night sleep, tend to be reasons such as insomniac and other related factors.
A new reaserch from Israel pointed out that, a normal daily routine helps and links closely in contribution of sleeping quality in older adults, and at the same time, daily routine also reduces the patterns of insomniac among them. Previously, many studies concerning sleeping quality have been conducted for healthy adults and people with Parkinson's Disease. These results actually showed that daily regular routine does linked with their sleeping quality. But what has it got to do with older adults?
A study, which recruited 96 Russian-speaking older adults have proven that daily regular routine, is also appear to be closely related to their sleeping patterns. The participants (who were then aged averagely at 75 years old) were assessed by trained interviewers, and they were living in apartments, and provided with independent living equipments, such as kitchennette.
These participants were closely examined and were ensured that they carry out the same activities in stability such as bathing, eating, making appointments and others. As a result, apart from proving that elderly actually sleep for an average 6 hour per day, their efficiency of sleeping as well as sleeping quality had also improved compared to what they've experienced before the study was conducted.
From the study, the researchers suggested that by increasing the stability in daily routine for older adults, it can be prediceted that these adults will have shorter time in falling asleep, increment of sleeping efficiency as well as sleeping quality. But if they were exposed to other activities which were uncommonly carried out such as shopping and having medical appointments, their sleeping patterns tend to fall back to what they experienced previously.