British scientists have calculated that a 20-year-old requires 45 minutes more sleep than people over 65. However, doctors have not yet found an explanation for this fact..

Despite the fact that the elderly often complain of insomnia, during the day they feel less fatigue than the young. In a new study, it was found that one way to normalize sleep in older people may be a simple time limit: those who later go to bed fall asleep more quickly, experts explained..

Scientists conducted a study in which it was estimated that of the eight hours spent in bed, people aged 20 to 30 years sleep an average of 7 hours and 14 minutes. By forty-fifty years, this time value drops to 6 hours and 50 minutes. People over the age of 65 sleep an average of 6 hours 30 minutes. People of the older generation are also more inclined to wake up at night than younger people. Despite this, during the day they feel less sleepy than the twenty-year-olds. The specialist noted that the results of previous studies suggest that elderly people who sleep 8-9 hours a day are exposed to various diseases twice as much as those who sleep 6-8 hours a day.

According to the researchers, the restriction of sleep can quite successfully be used as a behavioral therapy for insomnia in the elderly. The results of the study confirm the prevailing opinion that for the elderly people drowsiness during the day is abnormal. Regardless of the age, if you want to sleep during the day, this means one of two things: either you do not get enough sleep or you have a sleep disorder, experts say.. A report on the study was published in the journal Sleep.

Medicinform. Net.