How much you need to sleep to get a good night’s sleep, at different ages. Told by a neurologist and a somnologist

There is a belief that as a person ages, they need less time to sleep, and their sleep duration may decrease to five or six hours a night. Is this true? And how much sleep is needed in general depending on age?

Yana Koperskaya

neurophysiologist, neurologist, expert of the Academy of Physicians UniProf

The body’s needs change over time, including age-related changes in sleep.

How does age affect sleep?

The circadian rhythm of sleep is disturbed. The main center that controls sleep and circadian rhythms is the hypothalamus (a special section of the brain that is involved in the regulation of blood circulation). As we age, its function declines, including with regard to the regulation of the sleep/wake cycle.

Many diseases accumulate. For example, anxiety disorders and depression, restless leg syndrome, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease – these and other ailments disrupt sleep. Plus, many seniors are prone to anxiety and depression, especially those who are left alone or end up in nursing homes. This leads to disrupted falling asleep and depth of sleep.

Lifestyle changes. Including the amount of time a person is in contact with daylight. And this is important for hypothalamic function and good sleep. Most older people move less and don’t focus as much on intellectual tasks. Also, when you don’t have to go to work, it’s tempting to get out of a regular schedule. This, in turn, also exacerbates sleep problems. This is also true for freelancers who work from home.

What is the difference between the sleep of the young and the elderly?

Daria Lebedeva

somnologist, member of the Russian Society of Somnologists since 2017

The more tired we are physically and mentally, the more we need deep sleep so that everything we have gained during the day can be restored. Now imagine a day in the life of an elderly and a young person. With age comes increased fatigue and fatigue occurs even with minimal exertion. It turns out that the retired person needs to recover less, so nature gives him less deep sleep. The young, on the other hand, sit still less, get more new information and sleep more.

For example, if you take a young person in his 20s or 30s, his lower limit of deep sleep is about 19% or more. A 60-year-old, on the other hand, would have about 7.7%. The same applies to the number of awakenings – the older we get, the more often we wake up at night, as sleep becomes more sensitive and more superficial.

In the previous material told what happens to the body if you do not sleep all night.

In addition, night rest worsens and microsleep, when a person closes his eyes for a few minutes, but during this time has time to partially recover and spend hormones responsible for “sleep pressure”. Meanwhile, the elderly tend to fall asleep at the TV or reading a book, on a bench in the park. Hence the reduced need for sleep, which occurs after fatigue.

How much sleep is needed depending on age?

The younger the person, the more sleep he needs – seven to nine hours. With age, this figure decreases to six hours. But, in addition to the average norms, there is also an individual norm, it should be remembered. Those who get four or five hours of sleep will sleep even less with age. The same applies to those who sleep 12 hours a day: the amount of deep sleep will decrease over time.