Sleeping Less and Feeling Better About It

I am linking to a short article on MSN: Sleep after 65: Here's what this expert recommends, which quotes a Dr Estivill The upshot is this: "for people over 65 . . .   aiming for the famous 8 hours is not only useless at this age . . . but can even harm the quality of sleep.”

It only takes a few minutes to read the article that I linked above, but, regardless, I will post these summary points for your convenience.

• Sleep about 6 hours a night, if the sleep is continuous and restorative.
• Take one or two short naps during the day to complete your rest.
• Maintain a regular routine: get up and go to bed at fixed times.
• Avoid screens and stimulants at the end of the day.
• Don't feel guilty if you sleep less than before: it's neither a problem nor a pathology.

It makes me feel a bit better although I don't do nearly as well as I would like with the recommended daily napping. Somewhere along the line, I seem to have lost my ability to enjoy my once-usual, ten-minute nap. However, I do doze for very short intervals sometimes, which can be annoying if I lose the thread of a tv mystery, for example.

I will also not refer the article to Sue who, for some reason, nature has forced into the opposite direction, her requirements in seniordom having increased, not decreased.

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Having read the article, I kept track of my sleep via the Sleepwatch app for seven days. While I almost always check the reading in the morning, I usually only just look, shake my head despondingly, and go on my unmerry way. This time, I have paid attention over a longer period.

I slept less than 5 hours on 3 of the 7 nights, the lowest being 4:20. Two of three 3 nights were consecutive, which is far from ideal. One other sleep was not much better: only 5 hours right on. I managed 6 hours 3 times, the longest being 6:40. While that isn't bad, the other 2 were just 6:00 and 6:05. I feel better about life when the first digit reads 6, but that is just a mental comfort, for I sometimes note that I seem more tired after my longer sleeps.

A little more math revealed that I slept an average of 5:40 over those 7 days, so I guess that puts me almost in line with the article although it does recommend 6 hours/night.